Covid-19 Lockdown : A Juncture to Re-think on Undertrials Overcrowded Prisons and Utilisation of Probation of Offenders Act 1958

“Crime doesn’t exist in black and white but is born out of a grey area that needs to be analysed through a gendered intersectional perspective.” However these days a common belief is called – there’s a shift in penal philosophy from deterrence to reformation with the enactment of ‘The Probation of Offenders Act 1958’ and the various amendments in CrPC. Still large numbers of young first-time and petty offenders continue to form the main bulk of overcrowding figures in the prison population of the country. Just by turning the pages of the newspaper with a distracted mind suddenly the eyes tickle on a news... When a pregnant 26-year-old woman walked into Byculla Women’s Jail in 2013 accused of being a Naxalite the other inmates cautioned her to be extremely careful and not draw the ire of the prison officials. She wouldn’t be given nutritious food and had to be lucky if they took her to a hospital before her water broke. Are our prison world still the laboratories of torture?