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Title: FREE IN PRISON: FEMINIST APPROACHES TOWARDS WOMEN'S PENAL REFORM IN INDIA
Authors: Sehar Vedi
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Sehar Vedi The Modern School Vasant Vihar, New Delhi
MLA 8 Vedi, Sehar. "FREE IN PRISON: FEMINIST APPROACHES TOWARDS WOMEN'S PENAL REFORM IN INDIA." nt. j. of Social Science and Economic Research, vol. 4, no. 4, Apr. 2019, pp. 2856-2862, ijsser.org/more2019.php?id=210. Accessed Apr. 2019. APA Vedi, S. (2019, April). FREE IN PRISON: FEMINIST APPROACHES TOWARDS WOMEN'S PENAL REFORM IN INDIA. nt. j. of Social Science and Economic Research, 4(4), 2856-2862. Retrieved from http://ijsser.org/more2019.php?id=210 Chicago Vedi, Sehar. "FREE IN PRISON: FEMINIST APPROACHES TOWARDS WOMEN'S PENAL REFORM IN INDIA." nt. j. of Social Science and Economic Research 4, no. 4 (April 2019), 2856-2862. Accessed April, 2019. http://ijsser.org/more2019.php?id=210.
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Abstract: The Indian Justice system has ignored the gender identity of convicts whilst formulating and implementing policy related to penal reform. This is largely because of female prisoners forming a minority of inmates in India. According to the most recent survey of prisons conducted in 2015, there are 4,19,623 persons in jail in India, out of which, 17,834 (about 4.3%) are women. This shows a gradual increase in the percentage of female prisoners which was reported to be from 3.3% in 2000 (Ministry of Women and Child Development, 2018). Due to the number of men being vastly more than that of women in the prison system, there has been a general disregard to the gender-specific needs of women. Moreover, many facilities remain exclusively available to male prisoners only. With an increase in the number of female inmates, there is a need to focus on gender-specific nuances in jails and to view penal reform from a feminist lense. This paper attempts to analyse the historic and present state of female corrective facilities in India. It emphasises on the need of gender- sensitization in the criminal justice system with respect to creating more conducive facilities for reformation of female convicts. It also attempts to provide methods of improving these facilities through the philosophy of feminist theory, adoption of ideals based on the same in international conventions and their implementation in the form of policy.

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