Most of the time many prisoners are not able to meet their family for long time, as a result, the prisoners develop lonely feeling and goes in high depression. This also makes them violent or suffers from mental illness. To take out the solution on this issue, the Jail authorities have decided to make coin telephone box available for prisoners to interact with their families. Those prisoners, who have been sentenced to death, can speak to their relatives for 10 minutes twice in a month and the prisoners whose crime is yet to be proved, we will give time of 10 minutes once in a month. Especially, video calling facility has been made available for women prisoners through smartphones. Besides this, women prisoners can also speak to their family from the Coin box.
Under the State jail administration, there are 9 central jails, 31 district jails, 172 sub jail and 13 open jails. In this, more than 31,241 prisoners are imprisoned. Many of these prisoners are undergoing punishment for serious offenses and some also punished for minor offenses.
The rules for the Coin Box facility:
All the prisoners who are in jail are not going to be benefitted from this facility. The prisoners jailed in crimes like naxalism, bomb blasts, allegations of sedition, gangs/organized criminals have been kept away from the Coin Box or Video Calling facility. If any prisoner’s behavior is disingenuous in jail, he cannot avail of this facility.
This Coin box proposal has been approved by the state administration. But if it is not suitable to bring a prisoner out of the barracks for the safety reasons, then the coin box is being provided near his jail barrack.
The jail authority first checks the phone number that the prisoner is going to use to talk to their relatives. The money to make the call is provided to prisoners from the wages they are paid for their work. The cash received in Money order is also allowed to use for this facility.
1 month, 10 minutes, 10 coins
As a safety measures, at least one police constable is standing beside the prisoner while they makes a call. The constable makes sure that the prisoner is not giving any suspicious message the relatives. The prisoners with no serious offense are allowed to speak once in a seven days. A total time of 10 minutes in a month is given to prisoners, so 10 coins are kept for one prisoner. So it depends on the prisoner whether to finish it at the same time or use throughout the month.
Video calling via smartphone
There are many women prisoners too who are punished for years. Most of the time, these ladies seem to be very depressed as they are unable to meet their children. To heal them from this depression, only phone call is not enough. So they have been given a facility of video calling from smartphone.
Good response to the ‘Hug Campaign’
Prisoners are desperate to meet their children; but most of the time children cannot meet their prisoner parents. Therefore, the Inspector General of Maharashtra State Prison and Rehabilitation Center Dr. Bhushankumar Upadhyay started an initiative of ‘Hug Campaign’. Under this campaign the prisoner parents are allowed to meet their children who are under age of 16 years for an hour once in a month. This initiative got good response, a senior jail official said.
Shahu Darade, Jail Superintendent, Yerwada jail Pune
According to the decision of the State Government, the opportunity to speak for a total of 20 minutes in a month, based on the Coin Box for the prisoners sentenced to death, has been made available. The prisoners whose crime is yet to be proved, we will give time of 10 minutes a month. Female prisoners have been given facility to connect to their family through video calling.
Dr. Bhushankumar Upadhyay, Police Commissioner, Nagpur
When Prisoners develops a lonely feeling, they get very depressed. I had previously started a ‘Hug Campaign’ initiative to get them out of this depression. When I was the Inspector General of Prison and Security Department, I had corresponded for the Coin Box and Video Calling proposal to the State government. Now its implementation has been started. This will help prisoners to come out of mental stress.
