The COVID-19 pandemic era impact on the incidence of the custodial death, due to illness in 36 states and union territories of India-A comparison study (2017–2022)

Mahatma Gandhi said that “crime is due to diseased mind and jail should have an environment like hospitals for prisoner’s treatment and care”. A lot of research is carried out globally during COVID-19, on the well being of peoples staying outside the prisons, but very few large scale researches are available to know about the well being of the prisoners during COVID-19 era. The data is provided by the Prison Section of all the 36 States/UTs in prearranged Performa of the NCRB, through an application made by NCRB. A total of 11,289 custodial death occurred among the prisoners residing in various prisons of India, during the study period, out of which 9,406 (83.32 percent, Total-9406 (Obs-216, Mean-43.55, Std. Dev.- 68.87, Min-0, Max-401, Std. Err.- 4.69, 95% Conf. Interval of mean-34.31 -52.78) mortalities were attributed due to illness. Compared to year 2020, our study revealed that the COVID-19 year 2021 has attributed to largest (16.47 percent increased illness custodial death and 12.14 percent increased total mortalities) number of custodial death due to illness. The study revealed that during the study period, majority of the mortalities were due to heart diseases in prisoners (27.28 percent, Total-2566 (Obs-216, Mean-11.88, Std. Dev.- 19.30, Min-0, Max-123, Std. Err.- 1.31, 95% Conf. Interval of mean-9.29 -14.47). Cholera / Diarrhoea attributed to the least number of mortalities during the study period (0.21 percent, Total-20 (Obs-216, Mean-0.09, Std. Dev. - 0.40, Min-0, Max-4, Std. Err. - 0.03, 95% Conf. Interval of mean-.04 -.15). This six years of study revealed that most of the custodial death (42%), due to illness in prisoners of India was due to CVDs and pulmonary diseases. This study also revealed that 27% of custodial deaths due to illness were not clearly categorized. Honourable Justice Lokur, of Supreme Court of India, said in a landmark judgment, in 2013, that "The distinction made by the NCRB [National Crime Records Bureau] between natural and unnatural custodial deaths is not clear. For example, if a prisoner dies due to a lack of proper medical attention or timely medical attention, would that be classified as a natural custodial death or an unnatural custodial death?" The policymakers and decision-makers must think on the necessity of developing Prisoners care policies following the COVID-19 pandemic, in light of the findings of this research study.