Surina Tarzid and Md. Shahidul Islam

Abstract: The concept of rehabilitative prison implies compassionate treatment of offenders during their incarceration. This is necessary in order to rehabilitate them into society as law-abiding, productive members and motivate them to refrain from committing crime again. To ensure a rehabilitative prison, various initiatives have been taken at different times by different jurisdictions including Bangladesh. Given this background, this study examines the state of rehabilitative prison in Bangladesh from global perspective by employing doctrinal and empirical research methods. After analysing the relevant documents, case studies, and interviews of key stakeholders, specific findings are presented. The findings reveal that there are limitations to ensure rehabilitative prison in Bangladesh such as outdated legal framework, inadequate number of prisons, lack of manpower, logistic support, absence of training for prison officials, overcrowding, obsolete working practices, absence of psychological therapy, non-emphasizing on alternative sentencing and so on. To remove these impediments and ensure a rehabilitative prison, this study offers specific suggestions. These include updating existing laws, imparting education and different vocational training to prison inmates, improving infrastructure and logistic facilities, and introducing alternative sentencing to enable them to integrate into mainstream society when they are released from prison house.

Keywords: Rehabilitative prison, prisoner, recidivism, sentencing and rehabilitation

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