New Delhi: Rajasthan, Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh are the top five States, which have registered the maximum number of jail break incidents by prisoners during 2022. In 2022, 257 prisoners were reported as having escaped from judicial custody. Out of 257 prisoners escaped, 42 prisoners escaped from inside prison premises and 117 prisoners escaped while they were outside prison premises.
As per the NCRB data, 50 incidents of prison escape were reported from Rajasthan, followed by 24 in Bihar, 23 in Maharashtra, 20 in West Bengal and 14 in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan has reported the escape of 40 prisoners while they were outside prison premises, followed by Bihar (13) and West Bengal (12). The latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has revealed that a total of 257 prisoners escaped during 2022 where 98 escapees (38.1 per cent) had escaped from police custody and 159 escaped from judicial custody.
Apart from escape from judicial custody, 98 prisoners escaped from police custody. The highest number of such escapes from police custody was reported by Bihar (11), followed by Uttar Pradesh (10), Haryana and Maharashtra (8 each). In 2022, a total of 113 escaped persons were arrested again. The highest such percentage of re-arrest (more than one person) concerning total escapees in that State and the UT were each in Odisha and Uttar Pradesh (71.4 per cent), Karnataka (70 per cent), Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh (66.7 per cent).
The NCRB data further revealed that a total of 45 group clashes inside jails were reported in 2022. The highest of such clashes were reported by Punjab (27), followed by Maharashtra (7) and Haryana (6). A total of 115 persons consisting of 106 prisoners and nine jail officials were injured in such clashes and one prisoner died in such clashes.
According to the NCRB data, jails in Delhi reported the highest occupancy rate (184.5 per cent) followed by Uttarakhand (183.3 per cent) Uttar Pradesh (179.9 per cent), Meghalaya (167.2 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (164.4 per cent) and Maharashtra (161.4 per cent) as on December 31. The highest number of jails was reported in Rajasthan (146), followed by Tamil Nadu (142), Madhya Pradesh (132), Andhra Pradesh (106), Odisha (92) and Uttar Pradesh (77). These six States together cover 52.3 per cent of total jails in the country as of December 31.
Delhi has reported the highest number of Central jails (14) in the country. States and UTs like Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, the Andaman & Nicobar islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Ladakh and Lakshadweep have no central jail as of December 31. The total number of prisons at the national level has increased from 1,319 in 2021 to 1,330 in 2022 having increased by 0.8 per cent. The capacity in 34 women's jails was 7,080 with the actual number of prisoners in these women's jails being 4,258 (60.1 per cent occupancy rate), which includes 18 transgender inmates also as of December 31.
The capacity of women inmates in other types of jail (except women's jails) was 24,077 with the actual number of women inmates in these jails being 19,532 (81.1 occupancy rate) as of December 31. Uttarakhand has reported the highest female occupancy rate (166.5 per cent), followed by Bihar (146.8 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (128.2 per cent). However, the highest number of female inmates were confined in the jails of Uttar Pradesh (4,809), followed by Bihar (2,938) and Madhya Pradesh (1,911), the NCRB data revealed.
