Chattogram Jail Holds Four Times Its Capacity: Humanitarian Crisis, Severe Backlog in Judicial Process

 ❐ Chittagong Bureau

The extreme capacity crisis in the prisons of 11 districts (1 central and 10 districts) of Chittagong division has created a terrible humanitarian and administrative disaster. Currently, the prisons of the entire division have a capacity to hold only 7,700 prisoners, but in reality there are 20,610 prisoners.

The situation at Chittagong Central Jail is the most critical, with 7,051 prisoners crammed against a capacity of 1,850. The prison authorities are struggling to manage their daily operations due to the overcrowding of the prison.

A major source of the crisis are the ‘chowki courts’ established during the British period in remote upazilas. The trial candidates and prisoners of these courts are also kept in the main Chittagong Central Jail. The long journey from Chittagong to the respective distant courts on the scheduled date of the case creates complications.

Advocate Tariq Ahmed, president of the Chittagong District Bar Association, cited the issue as one of the reasons for the judicial slowdown.

According to him, the inability to produce the prisoners in court on time led to a standstill in the judicial proceedings that day, which ultimately led to a huge backlog of cases for years.

Human rights activists have expressed anger over the detention of prisoners at three to four times the capacity.

Advocate Zia Habib Ahsan, president of the Bangladesh Human Rights Foundation, said that the fundamental rights of prisoners are being severely violated in such a crowded environment, which is a direct violation of their rights.

In addition, due to space constraints, it has become difficult to ensure access to infectious diseases and general health services.

To reduce this terrible pressure, the Prisons Department has proposed setting up ‘sub-jails’ in seven remote and case-prone upazilas in Dhaka, such as Kashimpur and Keraniganj.

The proposal sent to the Home Ministry recommends the construction of these sub-jails in Sandwip, Banshkhali and Patiya in Chittagong district; Maheshkhali and Chakaria in Cox’s Bazar; Lama in Bandarban and Hatiya in Noakhali.

Chittagong Division Deputy Inspector General of Prisons (DIG Prisons) Mohammad Chagir Mia said that if prisoner accommodation is ensured in these identified remote locations, the existing pressure on the district prisons will come down to a great extent.

Although the pressure will ease if the proposal is accepted, the police administration has disagreements over the infrastructural implementation.

Chittagong Range Additional DIG Nazimul Haque acknowledged the challenge of bringing in and bringing in suspects from remote areas and said that whether there is sufficient police manpower, infrastructure, and financial capacity to operate separate sub-jails in each upazila is a matter for deep consideration at the policy-making level.

The need of the hour is to reform the administrative system of the prison system by replacing the old British and Pakistani-era infrastructure of the department with a modern and adequately-capacity prison system.