Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Dec. 1 (EMN): The strength of prison staff based on their duties and responsibilities are categorised into—among others—executive, medical, correctional, and ministerial staff.
The sanctioned strength as well as the actual strength of staff in various jails in the country as of December 31, 2017 shows that Daman & Diu reported 100% ‘personnel in position’ against the sanctioned strength; followed by Nagaland with 99.5%.
The comparison of vacant posts in 2017 shows that Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number of vacancies with 3,812; followed by Bihar with 3,242.
Jail officials
A total of 48,794 executive staff including 4,544 officers and 44,250 sub-cadre staff were posted in Indian jails against the sanctioned strength of 69,542 at the end of the year 2017.
A total of 611 correctional staff were actually posted in Indian jails against the sanctioned strength of 1,024 staff. States having no correctional staff were Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Haryana, Manipur, Punjab, and Sikkim.
A total of 1,996 medical staff were posted against the sanctioned strength of 3,072 as of December 31, 2017.
Also, a total of 3,539 ministerial staff were posted against the sanctioned strength of 4,982 staff.
The NCRB data for the year 2017 shows that the sanctioned staff for Nagaland was 583 out of which the actual strength was 580 staff, including ministerial staff and others, showing a vacancy of three jail staff.
Number of inmates per staff
The number of inmates per official could be an indicator of how well inmates in the country are looked after in prisons.
A total of 4,50,696 inmates were lodged in various jails across the country while the actual strength of jail staff was 57,307 in various prisons. Among all states, Jharkhand reported the highest number of inmates for each staff with 851 jail staff and 18,151 inmates—making it 21 inmates for each jail staff. Uttar Pradesh reported the second highest with 11 inmates for each staff.
At all-India level, there were seven inmates for each jail staff in all jails in the country.
The total number of inmates per staff as of December 31, 2017 shows that Nagaland, with a total of 419 inmates, had 580 prison staff, including ministerial staff and others. Interestingly, this would mean that there are more prison staff than inmates in Nagaland.
Health services to inmates were assessed on the basis of medical staff strength. West Bengal reported one medical staff per 923 inmates followed by Jharkhand with 698 inmates. D&N Haveli, Daman & Diu, and Lakshadweep reported no presence of medical staff.
Women staff
A total of 5,248 women were reported working as jail staff across all Indian jails. Maharashtra reported the highest number of women staff in jail department with 612 followed by Tamil Nadu with 551 staff.
The status of number of women prisoners for woman staff shows that Nagaland stands at the bottom with just .04 women inmates for each woman staff. Tripura reported the highest with 38 number of women inmates for each woman staff.
During the year 2017, Mizoram reported the highest share of 85.4% among all states/UTs towards training its jail staff including refreshers, specialised and re-orientations. Delhi recorded the second highest with 50.3%.
Out of the 580 jail staff in Nagaland, only 71 were trained during the year 2017.
