“The law requires us to keep prisoners in separate rooms depending upon the nature of crimes they have committed. But we cannot do so because of lack of budget,” Ghimire explains. "The government does not provide us enough funds.”
In lack of adequate budget, the prison is compelled to ration food and allowances meant for each prisoner, a daily total of 700 grams of rice and 45 rupees, which is well below UN standards. Insufficient budget has also meant that the responsibility to keep the prison clean has fallen on the prisoners as the jail can´t hire staff.
Prabhat Kumar Kushwaha, a prisoner, has served more than two-and-a-half years at the prison and as a reward for his good behavior he has been allowed to work as the jail´s health assistant for the last two years. [break]
He confirms that the water is unsanitary and that it contains 83 percent sediment when the law maintains that potable water should contain no more than 32 percent. “Prisoners by themselves tried to make and use filters but there is no room,” says Kishwaha. “People are sleeping under the bed, on the bed, even outside the rooms. The prisons need to release prisoners who have completed 50 percent of their sentence but they don´t do that. If someone is 65-years-old and if he has served 25 percent of his sentence then he should be released according to our law. I think this is a problem within the government.”
Dilibazaar Jail lacks proper ventilation and is spread over an area that is far below the prescribed standard.
The extreme overcrowding and lack of ventilation has led to a rapid spread of communicable diseases inside the prison and its poor health facility falls short of taking care of the basic medical needs of the inmates. Several patients have been diagnosed with chronic illnesses and need medicine regularly but because of the lack of money and severely understaffed health facility, only a fraction of them receive continuous treatment.
Kushwaha says that the prison also suffers severely from poor infrastructure. “The construction is so old that the structure is likely to give way even if a minor earthquake hits the area. Not much is being done to preserve the existing prison or add facility to ease the overcrowding."
Inside another one of the Kathmandu´s deteriorating prisons, Nakkhu Jail, established in 1975, now holds 500 prisoners, nearly three times its capacity of 150. “We can manage 150 prisoners easily but we have to manage 500 prisoners. As a result, the prisoners suffer… security, accommodation, food, medical... they all suffer,” says Jailer Laxmi Prasad Regmi conveying his distress.
Additionally, prisoners in Nakhu Jail are not separated according to the severity of their crimes, as the law commands, causing an increase in violence among inmates.
“The building is so old,” Regmi adds, “but currently we are building a new prison with a capacity to house 500 inmates.” The jailer claims the project should take no more than two years to complete.
Like the other prisons in Kathmandu, Nakkhu Jail´s health facility is drastically understaffed maintaining only one Senior Health Assistant who as a result must work each day of the week but still cannot manage to treat every patient. Inmates who contract illnesses too severe are referred to local hospitals for treatment.
Established in 1914 as Kathmandu´s first prison, Central Jail has now reached an alarming total of 2,383 inmates in the combined three blocks of the prison (one allocated to women), well overreaching the jail´s capacity according to Central Jailer, Keshab Raj.
Raj expresses concern over the increasing numbers. “Having more prisoners creates problems -- sanitation problems, health problems. We only have one outdoor playing ground for the prisoners.”
The outdoor recreational area within Central Jail is far too small for the vast number of prisoners it holds.
Raj describes the prison as far too congested and dirty because they have so many prisoners and no one to clean. Like the other prisons, Central Jail also suffers from poor infrastructure and lack of funds.
According to Gyan Prasad Dhakal, director of the Prison Management Department, overcrowding in Kathmandu´s prisons has become a serious issue in terms of health and violence among prisoners. “It is very difficult to manage them (prisoners) in the narrow space,” he sighs, “The prisoners are often quarrelling because of the lack of space and we are trying to overcome all of these problems.” Dhakal claims prisoners regularly complain about the condition of the prisons and have been urging for the efforts to be made in the direction of Prison Reform.
These numbers are a small portion of the nation´s all time high number of inmates, confining a total of 14,790 prisoners. Shambhu Koirala, chairman of the Prison Physical Structure Recommendation Committee, claims the prisons collectively have space for only seven to eight thousand.
A program has been initiated to build six to seven more prisons in Nepal over the course of three years to house the growing number of convicts. In addition to this, Dhakal claims an operation is underway to combat overcrowding in the short-term. “We are trying to establish an open prison system. This is for prisoners who lose their cases, get sentenced to three or more years, and maintain good behavior. They may leave the prisons and live with their families.”
This program, designed to trim down the rising prison population, should be under way in the coming year and will have its own structure built to manage these cases. Dhakal believes that because most prisoners in Nepal receive a sentence greater than three years, the open prison system is the country´s most effective way to deal with overcrowding in Kathmandu´s prisons.
Prisoners approved to participate in Open Prison will have the option to live with his or her family, work, and contribute to society. This would not only address the problems faced by Kathmandu´s prisons but also contribute toward social reform, an equally significant aspect of the law.
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