There is pressing need for a national remission policy; one that tries to humanise punishment

There is an urgent need to standardise the policy on remission of jail sentences, especially of life-term prisoners. Presently the States determine their respective policies. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court asked the Uttar Pradesh Government to re-examine its remission rule that prescribes a minimum age of 60 for a prisoner to be eligible to be considered for premature release. The court observed that a young offender of 20 will have to be in jail for a whopping 40 years before being able to apply for remission. Waiting for 60 years is staggering. It is as if a retirement policy applies to the prisoners as well. The apex court’s observation should alert the Government, prison reform committees and social reform organisations to a fundamental problem with the punishment system prevalent in the country. Punishing criminals is called retributive justice. Retribution means punishment inflicted as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act. In judicial parlance, the meaning is two-fold: Punishment to the culprit and compensation to the victims. The latter, if not backed by a proactive package to give the prisoner a chance to reform and return to society, will mean the same as the former. So, it calls for humanising punishment. Abolition of the death penalty can be considered a human act. In case of its retention, a sentence for life can be considered to have a human element. International practices are tending towards life sentences with a possibility of release. At some point during their incarceration, life prisoners should get the chance for release into society.

Remission does not mean diluting the crime or the power of sentencing. Rather, the power to release a prisoner prematurely is a bigger power than the one that sends the prisoner to jail in the first place. For, it comes with several responsibilities: Determining what is the sufficient period of incarceration commensurate with the seriousness of the crime; monitoring the former prisoner after remission with the power of sending the person back to prison for any violation of parole conditions; and, overseeing the transition of the former prisoner to a parolee and then a normal member of society. The process of law that begins with punishing a person for a crime must end with that person’s reformation, followed by rehabilitation. The premise that a ‘hardened’ criminal can never reform is no justification for denying remission. Remission should act as an incentive for self-discipline. However, arbitrary or extreme — as in the case of Uttar Pradesh — eligibility terms for remission are counter-productive. The Supreme Court has, in the Laxman Naskar case, pointed out to criteria to consider for premature release: Conduct-record of a prisoner while in jail, whether they had lost their ‘potentiality’ in committing a crime, that there is no fruitful purpose in confining them anymore, and the socio-economic conditions of the convicts’ families. They should form the basis for a national remission policy as part of the attempt to humanise punishment.