West Bengal prisons are goverened by the West Bengal Correctional Services Act, 1992
Important Information
Ongoing Reforms
Women & Children
Video
Concept Note On Pioneering Integrated Developmental Support Programme To
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| 1. | Title of the Project : | Integrated developmental support programme to prisoners’ children living back home in community for mainstreaming and reintegration. | ||||||||
| 2. | Geographic Coverage : | West Bengal | ||||||||
| 3. | Target Group of Children : | All the prisoners’ children living back home in the community upto18 years of age. | ||||||||
| 4. | Target Group Children identified : | |||||||||
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The target group comprises of children living back home in the community with their second parent or other relations at their own native place or that of the relations back home who need support of the society for their total healthy development and in order to fight off the stigma. They are children of convicted prisoners whose development, education and sense of security are impacted adversely due to long absence of the male breadwinner (mostly) and stigmatization. |
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| 5. | Facilitating Agency : | |||||||||
The West Bengal Correctional Services have made a study of the social, economic and psychological plight of the children of prisoners living in the community particularly those of convicts lodged in the correctional homes of the State. The National Legal Services Authority has adopted the programme for total support. Since the programme has to be implemented in remote and far-flung areas throughout the State, it is not possible with our limited manpower of the to cover such large number of children across the State and hence active participation of civil society partners has been sought for its implementation. The civil society partners for implementation of the programme include Ramakrishna Mission Ashram, Malda, Don Bosco Prison Ministry, OFFER, Udayani Social Action Forum (Saint Xavier’s group), Matrisangha Janakalyan Ashram, Rotary Club of Calcutta Mahanagar and Satyam Seva Kendra etc. The implementation of the programme will be monitored by West Bengal Correctional Services through the Superintendents and Welfare Officers of all the Central Correctional Homes and District/Special/Women’s Correctional Homes of the State. |
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| 6. | Identification through a survey : | |||||||||
| The West Bengal Correctional Services has already conducted a sample survey about the socio-economic conditions of the convicts’ children back home living in the community throughout the State of West Bengal during last two months. The first such survey identified 1519 children who were the victims of abject poverty, neglect and stigmatization and subjected to skip their childhood options and who needed immediate care and protection of the society as a whole in the absence of biological guardian. The sample survey also helped to identify the felt and perceived needs of such families and particularly such children. It may be mentioned here that no programme has ever been undertaken anywhere in India for the development of such stigmatized, hapless children of prisoners. | ||||||||||
| 7. | Target of Programme : | |||||||||
| The principal idea behind the programme is to study the conditions of prisoners’ children back home, their social status, their economic conditions, their educational & employment opportunities etc. to facilitate positive measures for their proper development as otherwise these children have the potential of harboring hatred for the entire society on becoming adult and therefore, might react with fierce hatred. This is a ground reality in our society that the children of convicted persons have to suffer acute stigma for their parent’s deeds. This is wholly unjust as such children are in no way responsible towards the crime by their parents. On the contrary they are victims themselves of the same crime as they are not only deprived of the parental care and sense of security so basic for healthy, around development of a child but also suffer the stigma of being criminals’ children. The programme is going to identify and cover the most vulnerable and neglected children of prisoners living back home who are denied opportunities of healthy development and who become victims of various forms of abuses including State machinery abuse, child labour and particularly the girl children who are the worst affected by the hypocritical, social and moralistic mindset of the society that causes further marginalization and social displacement. With a view to extending a special focus on this particular section of children, West Bengal Correctional Services in partnership of National Legal Services Authority through active participation of civil society partners propose to pool resources for using the same for a holistic educational, health, socio-economic and culturally-relevant programme which is child-centered, gender-sensitive and rooted in the life and environment of the community. It is proposed to build capacity and enhance present and future opportunities for the referred group of children who are in difficult circumstances, progressively reducing various risks to which they are most susceptible. In the Pilot Project, therefore, these children, their parents and the community where they live shall be the target of change. | ||||||||||
| 8. | Components: | |||||||||
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Following are the objectives and components of the programme :
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