Imprisoned beyond bars

Monday, 17 October 2011 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

IN Sri Lanka around 50% of people sent home after serving their prison sentences returned last year. Newspapers reported that out of 32,128 prisoners who were rehabilitated and sent home last year, 12,597 returned to spend time behind bars. Over 7,590 people have been remanded more than once in 2010. Over 5,000 people returned to prison twice after being released. Prison records show that 50% of people who are sent home return each year in Sri Lanka.

The statistics shockingly show that 86 people were remanded a whopping 11 times in 2010.

This is just a glimpse into the coutry's massively deteriorated justice system. The law should ultimately serve the entire society, which includes the wrongdoers who should be given a chance to learn something new and return to their lives with the ability to live within legal parameters.

The fact that half of prisoners in Sri Lanka end up back behind bars each year shows that the rehabilitation policies are largely a failure. Criminals are made, not born and it is clear that the economic resurgence of the country must reach these people if they are to move into living within the law.

The more people who are left to languish in prison and not allowed to lead a normal life, the more accustomed they become to violence and working for drug barons, corrupt politicians and other underworld members.

The flipside of this is of course the corrupt Police and custody deaths in Sri Lanka and the masses’ response to them. Take for example the Dompe youth who died in Police custody and the public outcry that resulted in a standoff between the Police and residents.

This indignation is, however, a delayed response as selected underworld figures without political affiliations have died in Police custody for months on end. All such deaths followed a standard script of trying to escape while being transported by the Police and were accorded tacit approval of the public and the indifference by the media.

A total of 57,000 grave crimes were committed last year. Barely 25% reached the courts for prosecution and only 4% led to convictions. With a virtually defunct criminal justice system, the public at large has come to view the extra judicial killings as a rough and ready substitute.

Society, encouraged by the State, finds it easy to think in absolutes – such as the glorification of violence. Within this framework there is no need for the compromises and trade-offs between deterrence and punishment, required for the rehabilitation of criminals, especially when they can be removed swiftly and cleanly from the equation.

The killing of Gayan Rasanga followed the agreed script but backfired due to the public backlash. The State responded by following a dangerous routine of calling in the armed forces to quell a civil disturbance.

Although it is easy to blame the Police for its systemic brutality, the fault is not entirely theirs. Hampered by lack of resources, shackled by legislation that makes them subservient to their political masters, the present Police force is based on a colonial model intended to pacify the natives and is at serious odds with civilised standards of law and order. The overflowing prisons are testimony to this fact.