NCJ Number
118018
Journal
Social Defence Volume: 22 Issue: 88 Dated: (April 1987) Pages: 10-16
Date Published
1987
Length
7 pages
Annotation
Modern prison administration in India is a legacy of the British rule.
Abstract
Lord Macaulay, the author of the Indian Penal Code, provided for imprisonment as the most commonly used instrument of penal treatment. The few books published by Indian criminologists credit Lord Macaulay with the initiation of the modern prison system in India. Lord Macaulay wrote that "imprisonment is the punishment to which we must chiefly trust." Macaulay, in turn, drew his ideas largely from what was happening in penology in Europe and other progressive nations in the early 1800's. British penological concepts as espoused by Macaulay replaced Islamic tenets of criminal law that were in force under the Mughal rule in India. Under this law, punishments included death, the amputation of hands and feet, whipping, retaliation by the victim's family, and banishment. Under the Mughal rule, jails were used primarily to detain nobles and political offenders. Within the first 90 years of British trading in India, the English had established jails in Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. Major advances in the institution of the prison system in India occurred from 1833 to 1857. 27 references.