International Journal of Law

Authors
Priyadarshi Nagda

Abstract
India is the world's largest democracy in more than name. It has free elections, a multi-party parliamentary system, a diverse and outspoken free press, an independent judiciary and the country abounds with the non-governmental organizations that take pride in their independence and that helps to make up a lively civil society. Yet if the checks and balances of democracy are supposed to curb the government lawlessness, something has gone wrong in our country. At least, it seems from an examination that has been recently conducted on imprisonment and police detention in our country. In some major cities of the country that we visited, and probably elsewhere as well, anyone unlucky enough to be arrested faces a far greater likelihood of torture, or worse, at the hands of the police than in many of the countries entirely lacking in the protections for civil liberties available in India. Though we had some inkling in advance that we would find extensive police abuse of the detainees, we were not prepared for what we discovered about the prisons and jails to which detainees are sent after the police are done with them. They would be bad, if only because the life is hard for the most of the Indians outside the prisons. It stands to a reason, therefore, if incarceration is meant to punish then life inside the prisons should be worse. What took us by surprise, however, is the manner in which it is worse for the great majorities of prisoners and, more surprising, the fact that the imprisonment is somewhat less harsh than we had expected for some prisoners. Though prisons are supposed to be leveling institutions in which the variables that affect the conditions of confinement which are expected to be the criminal records of their prisoners and their behavior in prison, other factors are there that may play a part in many countries.