BHOPAL: Women prisoners in Madhya Pradesh will, for the first time, get hair removal cream once a month and shampoo once a week from New Year's Day.
The aim is to help women prisoners maintain personal hygiene, say officials. Also, all prisoners in the state will now get a salad with their meal, and there will be a small increase in their daily quota of tea, milk, oil and dal.
These are among the new provisions in MP Correctional Services and Prisons Act 2024 that will come into force from Jan 1, 2025. It was supposed to come into effect on Oct 2, Gandhi Jayanti, but got delayed as certain mandatory things had been left out, said sources. Apart from health and hygiene, the focus is on tech upgrade and finding solutions to avoid overcrowding in jails. There are 43,000 prisoners in MP jails against a capacity of 36,000. Around 1,900 of them are women.
One of the priority areas in the new laws is to "understand and change the psychology of a criminal" and to train jail staff to understand and deal with a criminal in a better way.
The Union govt's Model Prisons Act 2023 has been taken as the template for the new state prison laws. The term 'correctional institution' will be added to 'Central Prison' or 'District Prison'.
There is a strong emphasis on adopting technology. Administrative processes will be digitized and the database will be integrated with central govt''s computerized system for prison and correctional institution management. The govt shall also develop interfaces for seamless sharing of information with the central system.
State to set up board for modernizing infrastructure
Jail superintendents will ensure frisking and periodic searches to seize contraband and mobile phones.
Advanced jamming equipment will be installed at the location, especially in sections holding high-risk prisoners.
The capacity of prison hospitals will also be increased.
The state will set up a ‘Prison and Correctional Institution Development Board’ with the objective of modernizing infrastructure.
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