Last Change:
05/27/2024
The Prisons Act
Year: 1894
Type: Domestic law
Rights Category: Health, Liberty & security of person, Work & Workplace rights
Description
The Prisons Act is one of the oldest laws that are in force in Bangladesh since 1894. The Act contains provisions with respect to prison regulations. It defines the roles of the prison authorities including the Inspector General, Superintendent, Jailer, Medical Officers and so on. The Act narrates the separation, classification of the prisoners and their entitlement while they are in prison.
While some provisions in the Act is progressive, for example- employment of the prisoners, provisions related to the health conditions and food, bedding, clothing arrangement for the prisoners; the Act also have some provisions that might fall apart from the international human rights standards. For example- the provision with regards to whipping of the prisoners or to put prisoners in irons still exists. It also allows whipping for prisoners under the age of sixteen.
Selected provisions
The requisitions of this Act with respect to the separation of prisoners are as follows:-
(1) in a prison containing female as well as male prisoners, the females shall be imprisoned in separate buildings, or separate parts of the same building, in such manner as to prevent their seeing, or conversing or holding any intercourse with, the male prisoners:
(2) in a prison where male prisoners under the age of twenty-one are confined, means shall be provided for separating them altogether from the other prisoners and for separating those of them who have arrived at the age of puberty from those who have not:
(3) unconvicted criminal prisoners shall be kept apart from convicted criminal prisoners: and
(4) civil prisoners shall be kept apart from criminal prisoners.
The Government may make rules consistent with this Act-
(1) defining the acts which shall constitute prison-offences;
(2) determining the classification of prison-offences into serious and minor offences;
(3) fixing the punishments admissible under this Act which shall be awardable for commission of prison-offences or classes thereof;
(4) declaring the circumstances in which acts constituting both a prison-offence and an offence under the 11[Penal Code] may or may not be dealt with as a prison-offence;
(5) for the award of marks and the shortening of sentences;
(6) regulating the use of arms against any prisoner or body of prisoners in the case of an outbreak or attempt to escape;
(7) defining the circumstances and regulating the conditions under which prisoners in danger of death may be released;
(8) for the classification of prisons, and description and construction of wards, cells and other places of detention;
(9) for the regulation by numbers, length or character of sentences, or otherwise, of the prisoners to be confined in each class of prisons;
(10) for the government of prisons and for the appointment of all officers appointed under this Act;
(11) as to the food, bedding and clothing of criminal prisoners and of civil prisoners maintained otherwise than at their own cost;
(12) for the employment, instruction and control of convicts within or without prisons;
(13) for defining articles the introduction or removal of which into or out of prisons without due authority is prohibited;
(14) for classifying and prescribing the forms of labour and regulating the periods of rest from labour;
(15) for regulating the disposal of the proceeds of the employment of prisoners;
(16) for regulating the confinement in fetters of prisoners sentenced to transportation;
(17) for the classification and the separation of prisoners;
(18) for regulating the confinement of convicted criminal prisoners under section 28;
(19) for the preparation and maintenance of history-tickets;
(20) for the selection and appointment of prisoners as officers of prisons;
(21) for rewards for good conduct;
(22) for regulating the transfer of prisoners whose term of transportation or imprisonment is about to expire
12[* * *];
(23) for the treatment, transfer and disposal of criminal lunatics or recovered criminal lunatics confined in prisons;
(24) for regulating the transmission of appeals and petitions from prisoners and their communications with their friends;
(25) for the appointment and guidance of visitors of prisons;
(26) for extending any or all the provisions of this Act and of the rules thereunder to subsidiary jails or special places of confinement appointed under section 541 of the 13[Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898,] and to the officers employed, and the prisoners confined, therein;
(27) in regard to the admission, custody, employment, dieting, treatment and release of prisoners; and
(28) generally for carrying into effect the purposes of this Act.