While conditions of living vary from jail to jail, standards in most of the 67 Bangladeshi prisons are appallingly low. Prisons are beleaguered by severe overcrowding, degenerating material infrastructure, absence of adequate medical care, incidences of sentry brutality and fraud, and prisoner-on-prisoner cruelty. Non-existence of pressure groups, indifferent attitude of lawmakers and bureaucrats, and inattention of public media keep the public unaware of the pervasive conditions inside the prisons. The governments have been completely aloof and apathetic to the dismal human rights violations in our prisons. There are virtually no efforts and programmess towards remedying these conditions and abuses in the immediate future.

The prison statistics say that Bangladesh currently has 60 prisoners for every 100,000 of its population. Pre-trial detainees/remand prisoners are about two-thirds of the total prison population. A total of 623 death penalty awardees are waiting to be executed in different cells.

Bangladesh has a capacity of holding 28,394 prisoners in all its prisons. With 83,136 inmates in these prisons, the occupancy ratio is 292 per cent. Overcrowding is obviously more acute in Dhaka Central Jail, as with a capacity of 2,682 inmates, it currently occupied by 11,014 prisoners. This is 410 per cent of the prescribed habitation. The other 66 prisons outside Dhaka have a current occupancy ratio of 280 per cent, where 72,122 people are living in a space for 25,712 people. For the prisoners ordained to die, there are 61 cells in the country. The occupancy ratio of these cells is 14 per cell in Dhaka, and 10 per similar cells in the country's other prisons.

A very predictable result of overcrowding, malnutrition, unhygienic conditions, and absence of medical care is the spread of contagious diseases, often leading to premature disability and deaths in prisons. Tuberculosis continues to devastate prison populations around the world, and there is no reason why its havoc should be any different in Bangladesh. Sick inmates carrying virulent pathogens, infect other new prisoners, and constitute a serious threat to public health when they are released. It is important to keep a prisoner with a contagious disease in quarantine, or in a separate cell. Lawmakers should introduce a bill to allow inmates in the late stages of terminal illnesses to return home to their families.

The practice of corporal punishment on the prisoners is common in Bangladesh, and leg irons, fetters, shackles, and chains are characteristically used. The weighty bar irons used in Bangladeshi prisons turn simple daily movements into agonising ordeals. Physical maltreatment of prisoners by guards remains as a chronic complexity in Bangladesh. In most prisons, unnecessary beatings are so common as to be an essential part of prison life.

Female prisoners made up 1.6 per cent of total prison population in 1998. Women prisoners are for the most part exposed to custodial sexual abuse. The problem is widespread in Bangladesh, where male guards and inmates can easily overpower female inmates.

There are 1,063 children in 60 jails, and 280 more in the correction centres in Bangladesh. In infringement of international standards, juvenile inmates are often held together with adults. Many of Bangladesh's jails and police lock-ups mix juvenile and adult prisoners. Children in such circumstances frequently fall victim to bodily abuse, including sodomy and rape, by adult inmates.

Violence is common at the prisons. Inmate-on-inmate violence is an unsurprising result of official slackness. By neglecting to take charge of the inmates within their facilities, by failing to act in response to incidences of violence, by wickedly allowing the entry of armaments into the prisons, and by generally abetting the domination of the strongest prisoners over the weakest, prison authorities are directly liable for the violence.

Extortion by prison staff and corruption of the guards is common. Given the extensive power that prison guards exercise over inmates, these problems are obvious. The poorly paid guards try to complement their regular earnings by exploiting the prisoners as bait for their friends and relatives. In exchange for smuggled goods or special attention and treatment, inmates supplement guards' salaries with bribes. Powerful and rich inmates often enjoy rich diets and comfortable lodgings, while their less opportune brethren live in nastiness. It is alleged that some criminals, in collaboration with the prisons guards, keep on operating and networking their gang activities outside while being locked up inside the prisons.

Prisoners confined in facilities in Bangladesh lack recreational and educational opportunities. The annual budget for Dhaka Central Jail is only Tk 57 crore. The prisoners in some cells are only starting to get electric fans. The government has given televisions to the prisoners in Dhaka Central Jail and 30 other prisons, and is planning to provide fans and televisions to the prisoners in other jails. Fiscal constraint, among others, is also to blame for prison deficiencies in Bangladesh. The age-old physical structures of most of the prisons are dilapidated.

Knowing about the current capacity-constraints, the government has decided to shift the Dhaka Central Jail to Keraniganj. Whereas under-trial prisoners should be kept near to where their cases will be heard, prisoners serving long tenures, and those with a repeated crime history should better be moved to a distant location in a maximum security prison. A sparsely populated small island in the Bay of Bengal can be chosen, and such a prison can be set there. The government may decide to choose any of the following islands -- char Kukuri Mukuri, Burir Char, Neta, Andar Char, or Bhaylabania, to establish the first Maximum Security Prison in Bangladesh.

The Chief Justice of Bangladesh has recently led a team of cabinet ministers to visit a prison. At the district levels, the District Judge, accompanied with the Public Prosecutor (PP) and the Superintendent of Police (SP), should be required to visit the district prisons at regular intervals.

Bangladeshi prison officials and guards need to be educated and trained to treat prisoners with due respect for their intrinsic self-respect and value them as human beings. Prejudice on the basis of race, sex, religion, political or other opinion, and national or social origin must be done away with. Prisoners should be allowed to practice their religious rituals. All prisoners should have the right to take part in cultural activities and education directed to the full advancement of human potential. Policy formulations are needed to enable prisoners to undertake meaningful wage-earning jobs inside the prisons, which will allow them to contribute to their own financial support and to that of their immediate family members, and facilitate their reintegration into the country's labour market when they come out after serving their time. Prisoners must have the right of entry to the health services available in the country without unfairness on the standing of their legal status.

Failure to improve the living conditions in Bangladesh prisons may lead to extreme anguish among the prisoners, and may direct them to take violent public attention drawing activities, like hunger strikes, self-mutilation, rioting, and other forms of dissent. Three years ago, in Kazakhstan, 44 inmates at a prison attempted mass suicide in protest of conditions. The inmates used razors and broken glass to hack their necks. We do not want analogous incidents to occur in Bangladesh.

Hasanat Alamgir teaches Business Aministration at North South University.

Habibur Rahman served as District Judge of Narayangonj, Munshigonj, and Dinajpur.