Culture Shock - A Psychiatrist Negotiates The Prison System

One had been waiting for 45 minutes on 24th August, 1993 for a group to assemble to listen to what one had to say. Ward 12 of Jail 4, the addicts ward, was a place no one in the jail felt happy to be in. A few weeks earlier, in a containment exercise, the prison authorities had rounded up all the drug addicts from all over Jail 4 and lodged them in this ward. The prisoners wore a stubble on their unshaven faces and looked vacant with the proverbial 'tombstones in their eyes'. Their clothes, most of them were in their underclothes, needed a wash a month earlier. One's thoughts about these reports were frequently interrupted by shouts and abuses hurled by the head warder for order, as requests for an assembly feel on deaf ears. The sound of the wooden rod on the backs of a few prisoners is still fresh in my mind. Slowly about twenty of the two hundred odd prisoners sat down to listen to what one was to say.

The background noise of the other prisoners was too loud for one to hear oneself. After a ten minute futile attempt, the venue had to be changed and these twenty-odd prisoners assembled in a room adjacent to the prison store-house to hear me out. A brief introduction by the assistant superintendent was not enough to break the ice. After telling them that one was a doctor who worked with drug addicts one enquired as what there needs were, and whether one could be of any help. This was new for them. They had been busy catering to the needs of others. The prisoners felt grateful that someone considered them worthwhile enough to talk. They were happy to have me come again after a fortnight.

On my return my thoughts were that one Kiran Bedi per ward was needed. We just did not have sixty such persons for all the wards of the prison. It also dawned on me that I had been given a big responsibility without being given any authority. It was a challenge nevertheless.

This prison was unlike others. An overcrowded detoxification facility, Aashiana, run by an N.G.O. under the tutelage of Ministry of Welfare was already running, catering to the overwhelming detoxification needs of all four prisons. Some counselling and post-discharge follow-up was also a part of their programme.

One discovered that 85 per cent of the prisoners were under judicial custody (under-trial) and no one in the prison had a control on the admissions and discharges. The population presented to me were all under-trials. Literature on prison programmes contained references to designs for communities for convict-prisoners. Rehabilitation programmes for under-trials was an unheard of concept. Even the law prescribed rehabilitation programmes only for convicts. Safe custody for under-trials was the prisons' only concern. Of the under-trials presented to me, there were a significant number who had earlier been convicted. There were others who would stay for a long time in prison owing to the protracted judicial proceedings, would then be convicted and leave the jail immediately -- their stay as under-trials would be counted as prison sentence already undergone. A new design was needed to cater to this reality. The closest Indian concept to a therapeutic community was a modified, well run Ashram. This new design was to be implemented in four stages over three years.

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