Two-thirds under-trial inmates make jails overcrowded

Lahore :Jails in the country have a capacity of 57,742 persons, whereas, the current inmate population is 77,275 people, with 48,008 under-trial prisoners and only 25,456 convicts.

It shows there are roughly two-thirds of all prisoners in Pakistan are under-trial prisoners. The under-trial prisoners are those prisoners who have not been convicted by any court of law and are being detained on mere suspicion. According to Usama Khawar Ghumman, a lawyer who had filed a petition before the Lahore High Court, for rapid action to protect prisoners from coronavirus, the conditions in prisons of Punjab are the worst in Pakistan. Twenty-nine out of the 41 prisons in Punjab are overcrowded. Punjab has a capacity of 32,477 inmates but the current population of prisoners is 47,077, showing overcrowding by 45 per cent. Similarly, 10 per cent of prisons in Punjab do not have ambulances and those that do don’t have proper

facilities. A report prepared by a commission earlier this year showed that contagious and chronic infections such as HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis are already rampant within the prison populations.