KARACHI – According to his case file, 20-year-old Jawad is serving three years at the Central Prison Karachi (CPK) for stealing a shopkeeper’s cell phone when the man wasn’t looking. The young man was caught, the cell phone was recovered, and he was beaten up and handed over to the police, who beat him up further and started legal proceedings against him. On account of his age, his crime did not fall under the jurisdiction of the juvenile courts. Jawad, however, is not a ‘grown-up’ either, in any sense of the word.
A first-time offender, sentenced for petty theft, the young man is serving time in the same jail cell as several hardened criminals, many of whom are not only repeat offenders, but are also in prison for serious crimes such as rape or murder. “At home, it was just Jawad, his younger sister and me,” his mother told Pakistan Today during a visit to her son in prison. “My daughter goes to school. Jawad did odd-jobs to make ends meet. His father died when he was very young. Since then, I have been the sole bread-earner. I work at people’s houses, and also sow clothes when I can. My daughter helps with cutting cloth. Then my son dropped out of school and took up odd-jobs at mechanics’ shops and as an electrician. He insisted that I was too old to work and should rest, but how can we run a household on payment that comes from small-time jobs, and that too, irregularly?”
“Jawad tried to steal the phone; I will not deny that. But that was his first offence, and even so, he was so bad at it, he got caught almost immediately,” she said. “To punish him for three years was too much! And then to house him with these people! It breaks my heart. My son is changing before my eyes. He was a sweet boy. Now he talks like these people, acts like them; perhaps he’s just trying to survive. What do you expect him to be like when he is released?”
Jawad, meanwhile, is not the only one. A shortage of space, resources and perhaps even forethought means that several first-time offenders – many even younger than him – are housed with hardened criminals. At the end of their sentence, instead of being reformed, they turn towards greater violence, as Jawad’s mother fears her son will too.
“Why would we mess with these chhoti macchli (minnows)? They come in here, scared out of their wits,” 36-year-old Sami, one of Jawad’s cell-mates, said. “Over time, they learn that they need to be tougher if they want to survive. Life is easier in here, but they need to go back outside, and try and make a living again. Doing that is what landed them here in the first place. Here, they just learn to do it better; they make contacts.”
Sami is in prison for the third time. His first visit was to the juvenile prison at the age of 15, when the owners of the house where he worked accused him of theft and handed him over to the police. He served 18 months in prison, got out, and was back again by the time he turned 17 – this time for assaulting a policeman who tried to catch him after he was chased for stealing. He was tried as an adult, and landed at the Malir Prison.
There, he says, he “made contacts”, got out, and “started a better trade”. “Then, even if I were caught, I’d at least have made a worthwhile sum,” he boasted. He was caught again a few years ago, trafficking heroin, and is now serving seven years at the CPK. He expects to be out of prison by 2017. “These are the people my son interacts with every day. All day,” Jawad’s mother said, shrugging helplessly. “I fear for his future. Instead of reforming him, the authorities have charted his path towards utter ruin.”
