As convict flees Pune’s Yerawada open prison, a look at these minimal security jails and how their inmates are picked

The idea of having minimal-security open prisons was deliberated extensively in the mid-1950s on various international forums. In the late 1950s, a committee set up by the Indian government to revise prison rules set guidelines for establishing open prisons in the country.

In Maharashtra, the first open prison for convicts was started as an annexe of the Yerawada Central Prison in 1956. The second such facility was set up at Paithan in Aurangabad (now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) in 1968. The Paithan facility was the first separately located open prison in Maharashtra and is considered an important landmark in the history of the state’s prison administration.

Maharashtra now has 19 open prisons, the second highest in India, after Rajasthan which has 31. Maharashtra’s 19 open prisons include two for women, one at Yerawada in Pune and the other at Akola.

The 19 open prisons have a total capacity of housing over 3,300 inmates and currently house over 3,100 prisoners. While the Yerawada open prison for men has a capacity of around 400 and houses somewhere around 250 currently, the one for women has a capacity of 100 and currently houses around 60 inmates.

“We need to understand that the central idea behind open prison is the trust that the system puts in these inmates. The inmate will trust the system only when the system trusts the inmate. These inmates are very carefully chosen by a committee for admission here from those serving long sentences at central prisons. That is why there is very little security, supervision and nominal perimeter wall or fencing. Various correctional and vocational activities here prepare the inmates for better life after their sentence,” a prison officer said.

 How inmates are selected

States that have open prisons have formulated their own set of rules to govern their functioning. The Maharashtra Open Prisons Rules were formulated in 1971 and came into force in July of the same year.

The superintendent of open prison prepares a list of eligible inmates along with their case histories. This list is placed before a selection committee that comprises the inspector general of prisons as chairman, the deputy inspector general of prisons of the region from which the prisoners are to be selected, the superintendent of the prison from which the inmates are to be selected and the superintendent of open prison.

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