Conditions
Space is at a premium inside. The jail was originally built to accommodate 800 prisoners but the average number of inmates is 2000—far exceeding its capacity in terms of space, sanitation and other facilities. Around 180 prisoners are crammed in a cell designed to house 50 and prisoners are forced to sleep in awkward positions.
Prisoners have high rates of HIV and tuberculosis.
A few decades ago, this prison was one of the most feared in India, because of the treatment prisoners received from the inmate overseers. The cells were overcrowded and the prisoners had to sleep on blankets infested with lice.
Incarcerated members of crime syndicates who are able to bribe guards and officers are able to live a more comfortable lifestyle. For those who belonged to powerful gangs, it was easy to control underworld activities from within the jail by mobile phone. However, a newly installed jammer (to block out mobile signals) may have put an end to that.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Road Jail
Famous quotes containing the word conditions:
“Statecraft is soulcraft. Just as all education is moral education because learning conditions conduct, much legislation is moral legislation because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres of life.”
—George F. Will (b. 1941)
“Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life—its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness—conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)