Correctional facility in need of correction

It was to be the model correctional facility, but it needs some amount of correction itself. This week Herald exposed the serious lapses at the jail, which has led to the Prisons Department contemplating taking disciplinary action against officials posted there. The fact is that Herald based its reportage entirely on the report of an inquiry that had been conducted by Crime Branch on the jail after a video of history-sheeter Anwar Shaikh strutting around the jail had gone viral in April last year. The report was submitted to the government in December 2020, but action based on the report is being ‘contemplated’ only after the Herald expose. For over six months the government did nothing over the report.
What this effectively means is that had Herald not accessed the inquiry report and published its contents, there may very possibly have been no action taken on that incident. What then was the point of instituting an inquiry on an incident if there is no intention to act upon it? Instituting inquiries, however, has become a practice to demonstrate that action is being taken, but effectively it just buys time for the government and allows the matter to be forgotten from public memory.
In another instance, jail guards posted at the same facility have been suspended after a video of naked prisoners being forced to do pushups went viral. Had the video not been shot and had it not been forwarded, would there be no action taken? This is a relevant question as in the absence of the video there would have been no possibility of the people in general learning of the goings on within the jail. It is extremely likely that there are such episodes occurring in the jail often, but it is only when they become public knowledge that the authorities act on them. It shouldn’t have to be that way and the authorities have to be aware of what is happening within the jail premises and act.
It is public knowledge from past experience that security at the Colvale jail is lax. There have been many attempts at escape made, some with success, to establish this. In August last year a prisoner had escaped while on garbage duty at Colvale Jail, and a month later another prisoner had gone missing from the jail. Security was tightened at the jail or at least orders to do so had been issued. But, were the orders followed? There have been cases of parties – even a bhang party where the brew was freely available – at the jail that came to light after the prisoners fell sick and had to be hospitalised. The smuggling of cell phones into the jail is common and there have been instances of brawls between prisoners, at one time a gangster being murdered by another in the jail.
Since it was opened in 2015 Colvale jail has gained notoriety and unless the government acts quickly and strictly, discipline in the jail will deteriorate further. For a start the security has to be tightened so that banned substances and items are not smuggled into the jail. Simultaneously the fraternisation between the inmates and the staff has to be ended. What facilitates the smuggling is the ‘friendship’ between the jailor and the jailed. It isn’t possible for items to get past the security checks unless the security guards and the jailors are also in the loop. If the authorities can bring an end to this ‘socialisation’ between the prisoners and the guards, it would bring discipline in the jail. These are small measures that are doable and would bring results.