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| The entrance of the open-air Lalgola correctional home. Picture by Chayan Majumdar |
Calcutta, Jan. 6: Bengal is going to get its second open-air correctional home, 25 years after the country’s first such jail was set up in Murshidabad.
The department of correctional administration prepared the proposal to set up an open-air jail in Durgapur after receiving a directive from the Union home ministry. The July directive asked the state government to build more open-air jails so that people living in them “can eke out a living and more convicts can be brought to the mainstream”.
The new open-air correctional home, to be set up on 9 acres belonging to the jail department adjacent to the Durgapur sub-jail, is supposed to house 35 cottages. There are 50 cottages at the one in Murshidabad’s Lalgola. Around 100 convicts stay in the Lalgola jail.
Generally, convicts who have served at least seven years are sent to open-air correctional homes, provided they have a good track record.
Unlike in other jails, the inmates of open-air correctional homes live with their families and are allowed to go out and pursue a vocation of their choice.
Usually, the inmates work as daily-wage agricultural labourers or sell vegetables they grow on the jail premises.
Senior jail department officials said the inmates of open-air jails “respect” the fact that they have been “trusted enough” to be kept in a “round-the-clock vigilance-free environment”.
“Open-air prisons offer a state of semi-detention. It is meant to be a transitional phase before the prisoners are released. It is a halfway home, with the emphasis on doing away with the social stigma usually attached to a criminal past,” the superintendent of a central correctional home in Calcutta said.
Those who will be sent to the Durgapur facility will have to fulfil some additional parameters. They will have to have an urban background, will have to be less than 60 years of age and have a record of good conduct all along.
A jail department official said Bengal was lagging behind other states in the number of open-air correctional homes. “While the other states have increased the number of open-air jails, our state has only one till now. The families of urban inmates find it difficult in the Lalgola facility as it is located in a remote area,” he said.
“Durgapur has been chosen mainly for urban convicts. The 9 acres selected is free from any kind of incumbency. Infrastructure such as kitchens, stores, barracks and wards are already there,” the official added.
Ranveer Kumar, the inspector-general, prisons, said: “Open-air correctional homes house inmates who have shown improvement in behaviour and are ready to be integrated into the mainstream. At the Lalgola home, inmates are allowed to work and learn skills outside and report back at night.”
The Lalgola inmates are engaged in agriculture-based activities and other vocations. Many convicts live with their families and travel long distances for work. The convicts are allowed to stay outside the jail premises till 8pm. There is only one instance of a convict escaping from Lalgola since it was set up in January 1987.
“The convicts at the Durgapur facility will be trained in motor-winding, electrical wiring, repair and maintenance of two-wheelers, four-wheelers and cellphones and plumbing,” a senior official said.