Overcrowding to unnatural deaths: 10 takeaways about Delhi’s jails

Prisons data by the National Crime Records Bureau for 2015 showed massive overcrowding in Indian jails and Delhi was the third most crowded, with a jail occupancy rate of 226%. Here are 10 takeaways about the national Capital’s jails.

Prisons data by the National Crime Records Bureau for 2015 showed massive overcrowding in Indian jails and Delhi was the third most crowded, with a jail occupancy rate of 226%. Here are 10 takeaways about the national Capital’s jails:

Delhi has the third-most crowded prisons, with a jail occupancy rate of 226%. (Arvind Yadav/HT File Photo)

1) Delhi spends Rs 73,543 per prisoner every year, the second highest in India.

2) The Capital also has the highest medical expenses in prisons – Rs 26.71 crores in 2015.

3) Third-most overcrowded jails in India. Occupancy rate in the Capital’s 10 jails is 227%.

4) Delhi’s budget for jails decreased by 5.8% in 2015 over last year, a contrast from the national average increase of 20% over the same period.

5) Delhi jails only have half of their sanctioned staff. This is below the national average of 66.1%

6) Delhi recorded the second-highest number of unnatural deaths inside prisons, 15, last year, behind Uttar Pradesh.

7) Delhi has the second-highest gross value of sale proceeds earned by the jail inmates, Rs 31 crores, behind Tamil Nadu.

8) 42.5% of Delhi’s 14,183 prisoners are serving life terms, the highest share of sentences among inmates in the capital.

9) 63.8% of all prisoners in the Capital are either illiterate or dropped out of school before Class 10.

10) Slightly more than 46% of Delhi’s prison population is scheduled caste, scheduled tribe or other backward classes – this is lower than the national average of approximately two in every three prison inmate.

Read | Typical Indian prisoner is Dalit or SC/ST, male, poorly educated: Survey