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Manuals and Trainings – Examples from Tihar Jail, India

2 March 2009

Tomas Martin

PhD Fellow, Danish Institute for Human Rights

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HR violations in prisons

• Extreme and systematic violations of the right to:– Life– Respect for human dignity– Freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman and

degradring treatment or punishment– Be recognised as a person before the law– Due process– Freedom from discrimination– Health– Freedom from slavery

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HR Potential

• HR supports the ”principle of normality” - Prison as punishment, not for punishment – punishment only entails a lawful forfeiture of the right to personal liberty, to freedom of movement and peaceful assembly. All other rights should be available!

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Rights-based prison management (Coyle)

• HR offers a ethical framework for imprisonment, which is essential if you want to deprive other people of their liberty

Reduces penal harm

Addresses both rights-holders and duty bearers

Supports rehabiliative paradigm

• HR addresses all aspects of prison practice in a coherent legal/moral framework, which is universal

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Rights-based prison management (Coyle)

”HR is the right thing to do” – morally sound, meaningful, contribute to the bridging of inherent paradoxes of imprisonment (punish/rehabiliate, prisoners as fellow human subjects/objects of control)

”HR works” – establishes a safe and effective regime

Both statements are (more or less) immediately apparent and meaningful to all prison actors!?

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HR as a terrain for struggle

– [Human rights] are a constant challenge to vested interests and authority in societies riven by enormous disparities of wealth and power, with traditions of authoritarianism and the helplessness of disadvantaged communities, of militarisation and the conjunction of corrupt politicians and predatory domestic and international capital. Human rights are therefore a terrain for struggle for power and the conceptions of a good society (Ghai 1995:65)

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Opposition to HR

“The human rights people ask us to take the snake out of the basket and put it around our neck. We are bound to get bitten in the forehead, because prisoners are snakes!”

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Tihar Jail

• (Probably) the largest prison in the world

• 13.000+ prisoners = overcrowding of more that 100%

• 85% ”undertrials”• 70-80.000 prisoners

per year

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“A Third World Hell-Hole”

• “To sum up, the Tihar prison is an arena of tension, trauma, tantrums and crimes of violence, vulgarity and corruption”.

• (Gonsalves et al. 1996:231-232).

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Kiran Bedi - Tihar Ashram

• “When I had joined in May 1993, we had set ourselves the goal of transformning the jail into an Ashram - an institution which enables introspection by all its inhabitants, including managers”

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Collective-Corrective-Community

• New management and spirituality– Openness (media,

NGOs and donors– Meditation– Participation– Accountability

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HR Training

• Mgt’s devolution of British Council programme to sensitise subordinate staff

• Opposition to HR = ”Staff have a Mental Block” (explained away with culturalism and psychologism)

• But what about the ability to implement HR in practice?

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Working conditions for staff

• Extreme harsh working conditions– Work load/duty schedules– Violence– Pressure from strong prisoners and superiors– Limited workers’ rights (suspension, organisation,

promotion…)

• ”Coping”– Survive as persons, physically and professionally– Prisoners must not escape– Prisoners must not die

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Notions of HR• HR as privileges (”less eligible”)

– “… jail’s role is not a jail’s role anymore, because of human rights. The prisoner has got so many facilities, so why will he change his ways? If I hit someone with a knife today, I know that after going inside, I will get food on time, will get water on time, do not have to do anything, so why should I be frightened?”

– “… A normal person does not get so many rights, but he who gets life imprisonment, for him these rights are very important. This they tell in human rights.”

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Notions of HR• Legalisation changes the power relations,

hierarchical collapse:

– “…The Human Rights Commission, they have given too many rights, too many, so the prisoners have started misusing it. If you try to stop him from something, he immediately says: “I will give a writ in court”. And then with the help of the human rights, they will have you called in court. (…) We cannot touch him, when he is doing wrong, or if he misbehaves, so we are forced to listen to him. (…)

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Notions of HR

• The necessary violence

– “Out of 100, you will find one person, who will understand when you explain with love. The rest, the prisoner whose job it is to do crimes, he will not listen. And now under human rights, we cannot touch him, cannot frighten or threaten him in any way. So that is why they have an upper hand on us, because they know that human rights is working and that we cannot do anything to them.”

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Notions of HR

• Opposition to HR gave warders an opportunity to voice and re-confirm their understanding of prison life (agency):– Prisoners got too many privileges– HR established a dangerous disruption of power

relations– HR undermined the hierarchy, fear and the exercise

of necessary violence– HR challenged their categorisation of prisoners

• HR = misunderstood and destructive prison reform project

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Notions of HR

• But the ”luxury project” also had potential…

– Human rights will tell what facilities we have to give, [and] till what point we can press the prisoners.

– It’s easy for us, and for them also, when we tell the prisoners that “human rights has allowed these rights for you – you cannot take more than that!” (…) Frankly, earlier we did not know how or what things were to be kept.

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HR and Empowerment

– Support duty bearers (relative empowerment)– Take local worlds as point of departure– Do not simply preach, sensitise and demand,

but also build capacity– Seek ”constructive” transformation of power

relations

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DIHRs Manual Concept

• Training often chosen as efficient way to begin reforms effectively, quickly and at a low cost

• Vast number of universal education numbers exists, but difficult to implement– Universality– Lack of ownership– Emphasis on attitude change, rather than

capacity building

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DIHRs Manual Concept

• The manual must be developed by local experts in close cooperation with the relevant ministry and related other institutions, i.e. the police academy, police school, etc.

• The content is reflecting the socio-political reality of the country of implementation as well as anchored in relevant national legislation

• The education methodology recommended in the manual is reflecting and respecting the educational culture of the national educational system and at the same time introducing participatory teaching techniques

• That the manual can be implemented either to the existing or a new tailor made education structure

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DIHRs Manual Concept

• Process management (executive + law enforcement + civil society = dialogue)

• DIHR as coach, expert and honest broker– Quality Assurance– Standards– Education methods– Form

• Police manuals in Albania, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Croatia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malawi, Montenegro, Mozambique, Niger, Romania, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda and Ukraine