SENSITIZATION OF PRISONS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO WOMEN

Prisons are less sensitive to the psychological needs of women. There is a growing need for gender sensitization of the prison system. This paper essentially deals with the dilemmas faced by women prisoners in India due to the lack of gender sensitization in Indian jails. Any major program related to well-being of prisoners is focused on men, ignoring the women inmates in prisons all over the nation. The main areas of problems include the lack of provisions for inmates who have infants to take care of, social stigma during and after the prison term, and economic pressures mainly flowing from the traditional economic dependence of women on their male counterparts.. Therefore, this paper argues that there is a need for amendments at a series of levels, from Jail Manuals and prison rules to the technicalities of the prison system in the country apart from the, due care that is required to ensure that the medical, psychiatric, economic and social needs of women inmates are met.

Women form a small portion of the total prison population in India. As per the World Female Imprisonment List, more than half a million women and girls are detained in penal institutions all over the world. As far as the Indian scenario is concerned, the statistics of the National Human Rights Commission till 2004 revealed that there are about 13, 355 women and girls in penal institutions all over the country, forming 4 per cent of the total prison population.

The changing trend regarding imprisonment of women in many countries, including India can be attributed to change in the punishment pattern for a number of small offences, which were earlier punished by non-custodial sentences. Women are usually imprisoned for petty and non-violent crimes, mainly for property and drug related offences, and often come from socially