Promoting literacy for prisoners' rehabilitation

Abstract

In India, the jail occupancy level has been around 113% for last few successive years, which calls for an urgent need to address not only spiritual and moral but also economic rehabilitation of prisoners as well. The paper discusses how the corporates can become a catalyst in improving a prisoner's rehabilitation through innovative and sustainable solutions and help the aim and objectives of the government with various well designed programmes. This paper takes into the account the literacy aspect of prisoners in various jails in India and impresses upon as to how the Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic (3Rs) of Functional Literacy can have a positive bearing on Reformation and Rehabilitation (2Rs) in the prison environment to support the moral, educational and vocational development of the jail inmates through available resources in prisons. The paper gives an account of the life and context of prisoners in India's prisons and the role of the industry to create an environment that helps to transform jails into real reformatories. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) saw it done through its indigenous Adult Literacy Programme software encompassing (3Rs), which has been implemented across the jails in India. The programme is being implemented as a joint initiative of the respective Departments of Prisons and TCS. TCS, with its programme objectives · Impart `Functional Literacy' to non-literate inmates · Provide the excluded a second chance to empower and enable themselves to deal with challenges of a literate society · Provide inmates opportunities for creative use of time and energies has successfully been helping thousands of prisoners achieve empowerment through learning and thus facilitating transformation of individuals and improving their reforms.