National Crime Records Bureau has published the Prison Statistics India (PSI) 2020, the latest official statistics on the state of India’s prisons and their inmates, published in December 2021. According to the reports Access of prisoners to courts fell by 65%, and to hospitals by 24%. PSI 2020 presents data from January 2020 to December 2020.
The India Justice Report (IJR), which, since 2019, has been reporting on justice delivery in India, has analysed PSI 2020. The analysis shows prisoners’ visits to courts came down nearly a third, from about 44.5 lakhs in 2019 to 15.5 lakhs in 2020. Impacted too was inmates’ access to health services, withthe number of visits,made by prisoners for medical attendance,declining from 4.77 lakh in 2019 to 3.63 lakh visits in 2020.Visits by medical personnel to prisons also reduced from 24,524 in 2019 to 20,871 in 2020, while visits by judicial officers nearly halved to 9,257 in 2020 from 16,178 in 2019. Ms. Maja Daruwala, Chief Editor of theIndia Justice Report, said, “Despite the many efforts to decongest these institutions, and minimise the risks of contagion inherent in these overcrowded places, their overall condition has not improved.”