Imprisonment and sentencing I believe are not sufficient to rehabilitate criminals and ensure that they desist from crimes. The task does not end here, I daresay that to eliminate crime from our society it is essential to take steps which bring a gradual change in the behaviour of the criminals which prevent them from committing further crimes.
Steps should be taken for making the jail a place of rehabilitation for criminals rather than it simply being a place of isolation from the outer world
Instead of providing them with an environment where they can rectify themselves, the jail culture further criminalises them. The jail provides them with a breeding ground for transforming a theif into a dacoit and a dacoit into a murderer and a murderer into a drug addict. In jails, criminals are further entrenched into the life of crime than they were in an open society. There exposure to the criminal world increases and they internalise more values and behaviours of criminal culture. Thus, they often become even more perilous to the safety of the society.
If the jail culture was more rehabilitative, that would not only provide the convicts with an opportunity to rectify themselves but would also aid in healthy and constructive treatment of the criminals and make their re-absorption into society easier.
Thus to extricate a criminal from the vicious cycle of crime, we should change our mindset regarding how we treat our convicts and criminals. A sense of duty should compel social activists, politicians and other members of the civil society to pressurise the government to take some necessary steps in this regard.
RIDA HUSSAIN
Karach
