Prisons and Correctional Administration Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Justice A.N. Mulla chaired the All India Committee on Jail Reforms of 1980 to 1983, which is called the Mulla Committee. It reported on the conditions of Indian prisons and recommended reforms.

Justice Venkatachaliah, Justice Anand and Justice Krishna Iyer were associated with other committees and reports on the justice system, so they did not chair this one.

The Mulla Committee was set up by the Government of India in 1980 and submitted its report in 1983. It made wide recommendations on prison administration, classification of prisoners and the treatment of women and juveniles.

Answer: D

The key takes all of the above as the authorities that approve or grant special remission, in the sense that the jail officials and the government have a part in the grant, under the remission rules of the prison manual.

The central jail superintendent, the inspector general of prisons and the jail minister each has a part under the rules, so the option that names only one of them is not complete. The answer rests on the official key.

Answer: D

By the key, the jail authority, option (D), is the one that approves premature release of inmates, in practice through the sentence review process of the prison department of the state, on the basis of the remission and parole rules. The police investigate crimes and the prosecution conducts cases, so (A) and (B) have no part in release. The court sentences the convict but does not grant release from prison on its own, so (C) is wrong, although the decision is formally the power of the appropriate government.

Answer: C

John Howard, option (C), is the prison reformer, an English sheriff whose book The State of the Prisons in England and Wales (1777) exposed the squalor of the jails and led to reforms. Thorsten Sellin is a criminologist known for culture conflict and for work on capital punishment, John Cohen is not a known prison reformer, and Peter P. Jegins is not known as one, so (A), (B) and (D) are wrong. Howard's work led to the Penitentiary Act of 1779 and his name is carried by the Howard League for Penal Reform in Britain.

Answer: D

The right to vote in public elections is not a right of the convicted prisoner, option (D), because under section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act a person in prison cannot vote. A prisoner does keep rights of visitation by family and lawyers, access to justice, and the right to apply for bail where the law gives it, for example while an appeal is pending, so (A), (B) and (C) are rights, and (D) is the one that is not.

Answer: B

The Auburn system is related to prison architecture, option (B). It was the system begun at Auburn prison in New York in the 1820s, under which prisoners worked together in silence by day and were kept in separate cells by night, as against the Pennsylvania system of solitary confinement. It does not relate to the design of police stations, courts or detective schools, so (A), (C) and (D) are wrong. The Pennsylvania system, by contrast, kept each prisoner alone in a cell day and night, and the Auburn plan was seen as cheaper and as more useful for prison labour.

Answer: C

The Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer Committee, option (C), was set up in 1987 by the Government of India to examine the problems of women prisoners, and it recommended women police, women's jails and better care. The Prison Reform Committee of 1980 (Mulla Committee) looked at the prison system as a whole, the Malimath Committee studied reform of the criminal justice system, and the Kapoor Committee was on a different subject, so (A), (B) and (D) did not deal exclusively with women prisoners.

Answer: D

All of the services listed should be available in women's prisons, option (D): gynaecological consultations for health care, counselling services for stress and past abuse, and care for children who live with their mothers in prison. Each of (A), (B) and (C) is only one of the services, so the right choice is all of above. The Krishna Iyer Committee and the later model prison manual both stress these services, along with separate living quarters and women staff.

Answer: C

The cellular jail was located in Andaman and Nicobar.

The Cellular Jail at Port Blair was built by the British, who sent political prisoners and freedom fighters there and called it Kala Pani.

It was not in Puducherry, Goa or Daman and Diu, so those options are wrong.

Answer: A

'Remission' means reduction in sentence.

Remission is given under prison rules and should not be confused with commutation, which changes the kind of punishment, or with parole, which is a temporary release.

In prison administration, remission is the shortening of a prisoner's term as a reward for good conduct and work.

Temporary leave is parole or furlough, pardon is an act of the executive that wipes out the sentence, and a monetary reward is not remission.