KOCHI: The Mattanchery sub-jail has made a mark as being the country’s first prison house to provide a mosquito-free environment to its inmates.With mosquito nets attached to every window on the campus, the sub-jail provides a healthy environment to both visitors and inmates, whose cells have also been made mosquito-free.“Being able to make a prison complex completely mosquito-free in not an easy task in a city like Kochi,” says former Jail Superintendent P P Varghese, under whose guidance the project became such a success. The sub-jail, housing 100 inmates - 10 per each cell - is awaiting an ISO accreditation. In the process, it has achieved many of the standards required to receive the ISO tag.The concrete flooring of the compound has been replaced with tiles. “The living conditions of the inmates have improved, especially now that all the cells have tiled floors, good ventilation facilities and bathrooms,” Varghese says. For a prison that houses dreaded criminals booked for offences such as murder, rape, drug abuse etc., the atmosphere is well-disciplined. Jail Superintendent KA Balakrishnan says, “The Mattanchery sub-jail has a history of housing notorious criminals, most of whom belong to the city. A lot of effort is taken to create law and order in the jail. If the authorities coordinate with and treat the prisoners properly, such an environment could be easily achieved.” In fact, some criminals find the atmosphere so good that they commit offences just in order to be housed in the jail. “Sometimes the criminals who are remanded by the court request us not to release them that early,” Balakrishnan says.There are two categories of the people housed in the sub-jail. “Some belong to poor sections of society where families live in one-roomed houses. They come here in desperation for shelter. Others usually belong to rich families and are jailed for drug addiction and other crimes,” he says.Recreational facilities too have been provided to the inmates. They have access to a big library of books on history and literature, and Malayalam newspapers. “But special emphasis on education and training cannot be provided to the inmates like other ISO-accredited jails, because some of these prisoners would be housed here only for a day. Besides maintaining the physical fitness of inmates is also a problem because there is not enough space for such programmes in the jail,” Balakrishnan rues. Their menu consists of chappati and curry for breakfast, rice and fish or meat for lunch, and tapioca or rice for dinner. An inmate, who has been housed here for some months, says he likes the atmosphere of the jail and they are treated properly by the jail authorities. Balakrishnan says that it was possible to make such favourable conditions in every jail, provided that there is a willingness to incorporate the necessary standards needed for the inmates to live.
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