Hyderabad: Jails are set to be a home away from home? If all goes well, inmates of the open air prison, Anantapur, can call over their families to stay with them for a few days. They will have a room with a verandah and also a kitchen where they can cook food of their choice.
A plan has been drawn up to construct, what is called, halfway home’ so that inmates can continue to have strong family ties while they are serving a prison term for their crimes. Earlier, such a facility had been planned for the open air jail at Cherlapalli. For the open air jail at Anantapur, a foreign NGO showed interest to fund construction of rooms for the families of prisoners.
With the state government also showing inclination for such an experiment, prisons department authorities have chalked out a plan for facilitating prisoners to stay with their families for about three days. The jail is spread over 1400 acres and, presently, accommodates 200 prisoners though there is enough space for 235. The inmates mostly work in 750-acre agriculture land. Apart from tending to mango orchards, they raise groundnut crop and grow vegetables.
“As it is prisoners with good behaviour are sent to open jails. If they are allowed to have strong family ties, it could help in their further reformation. It may take some time for the rooms to be constructed with monetary help from NGOs,” Addl IG, prisons, B Sunil Kumar said.
The inmates are quite excited about the proposal. Anantapur open air jail superintendent I Srinivasa Rao told TOI that the `reunion homes’ as the proposed rooms in the jail will also be referred to as, will provide the inmates an opportunity to spend quality time with their families.
During the ‘mulakat’ prisoners can only spend some time with a visitor but the halfway home’ or a ‘reunion home’ will only make the family bond stronger. The experiment will be somewhat like the system reportedly existing in the jail at Singaner in Rajasthan. In the Singaner jail, prison inmates live with their families and work in the prison fields. In the Anantapur jail, families can only visit the inmates for a few days.
A plan has been drawn up to construct, what is called, halfway home’ so that inmates can continue to have strong family ties while they are serving a prison term for their crimes. Earlier, such a facility had been planned for the open air jail at Cherlapalli. For the open air jail at Anantapur, a foreign NGO showed interest to fund construction of rooms for the families of prisoners.
With the state government also showing inclination for such an experiment, prisons department authorities have chalked out a plan for facilitating prisoners to stay with their families for about three days. The jail is spread over 1400 acres and, presently, accommodates 200 prisoners though there is enough space for 235. The inmates mostly work in 750-acre agriculture land. Apart from tending to mango orchards, they raise groundnut crop and grow vegetables.
“As it is prisoners with good behaviour are sent to open jails. If they are allowed to have strong family ties, it could help in their further reformation. It may take some time for the rooms to be constructed with monetary help from NGOs,” Addl IG, prisons, B Sunil Kumar said.
The inmates are quite excited about the proposal. Anantapur open air jail superintendent I Srinivasa Rao told TOI that the `reunion homes’ as the proposed rooms in the jail will also be referred to as, will provide the inmates an opportunity to spend quality time with their families.
During the ‘mulakat’ prisoners can only spend some time with a visitor but the halfway home’ or a ‘reunion home’ will only make the family bond stronger. The experiment will be somewhat like the system reportedly existing in the jail at Singaner in Rajasthan. In the Singaner jail, prison inmates live with their families and work in the prison fields. In the Anantapur jail, families can only visit the inmates for a few days.
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