Cotabato Prison, Philippines, one of world's toughest prisons..

The other day I was going through a documentary from Free Documentary on the Internet. I have never closely understood how prisons work or what goes through the prisoner's minds.

This is the story of Cotabato prison in Philippines. In a space of 2 buildings designed to accommodate just 600 prisoners, these are not hard core convicted ones, they are standing trial for crime, yet to be punished, about 1600 prisoners cram.

Cotabato prison, Philippines, Free Documentary

Click here to watch the 45 min documentary ..

In any prison we are likely to find many innocents too who get caught in the cross fire and get arrested by the Police just on suspicion. If we take about 30% are of that category and the rest are yet to be charged, without understanding the motive, the injustice being meted out tio these people is indeed beyond words.

The sad part is to understand that almost all of them are in their thirties or forties,, barley few in their fifties or more. The best productive part of their lives is being spent in these horrible conditions.

My first experience of prison life happened just once when as a young student in the Govt. College of Engineering, Trivandrum, from the church, as a youngster group during Christmas time, we got permission to visit the Poojapura jail, on the outskirts of Trivandrum city, where we went to spread the cheer of New year during the New Year of 1985. A rare experience, which most of my colleagues and friends have never had and would never wish to. Kerala prisons do not have the issue of overcrowding. Imagine having to share the prison room with 6 - 8 other criminals or suspects ..

It was Kiran Bedi, IPS, now Governor of Pondicherry who is credited with bringing great jail rreorms or changes in the country's top and notorious Tihar jail in Delhi around the nineties. It was remarkable and commendable. She was awarde the Magsaysay prize for that. 

Overcrowding at prisons .. Aljazeera

Most of the freedom fighters during the Indian freedom struggle have been jailed and the most important of it I would say is Jawaharlala Nehru who unfortunately was jailed for almost ten years. But not losing hope, Nehru went into writing inside the prison and some of this best writings have come out of his prison stay, like Letters to a Daughter, Discovery of India and so on.

Being jailed for protesting against injustice meted out to the people in the name of racism, for just protesting and for no fault , even for upto 29 years, like in the case of Nelson mandela is the other sad part of jail stay.

Besides losing hope, the psychological strain on the human mind is very shocking,. Drug related crime, I find, is responsible for maximum prison sentences around the world. Impoverished upbringing without love and care is responsible for making many of the convicts to turn to hard-core criminals. 

Creatively using the inmates and their energy within the prison to produce creative things is a creative way of using the time of the prison inmates. The revenue from the work is returned to the inmates at the time of their finishing their prison sentences. Poojapura jail inmates in Trivandrum make chappathies and sell to the city hotels, they also make Covid PPE in the jail and sell the medical shops and hiospitals across the state.

Kiran Bedi, 1994, Magsaysay award

The Psychological distress these prisoners bear is very heart breaking. Due to the gravity of the crime they have committed, it is not safe for society to allow them to get back to mainstream soon enough, they are a constant threat to society.

In my opinion, political prisoners should be treated differently from other prisoners.

Lets hope in the coming days we get to respect the human rights and offer them to prisoners in prison, even though they have infringed upon the human rights of someone else that has brought them to jail.

Prison reforms are needed.

George..