The Minister of State for Home Affairs Shri Kiren Rijiju will inaugurate the 2-day National Conference on “Uniformed Women in Prison Administration”.The Conference is being organised for women officers of the rank of Jailors to Dy. Superintendents of Prisons. This Conference will have Panel Discussions, Deliberations and Syndicate Discussions on 4 themes:
• Are Woman Prison Officers getting mainstream duties?
• Difficulties in balancing family and work environment of Women Prison Officers.
• Training needs of Woman Prison Officers and Correctional Staff
• Is there need for change of uniform for Woman Prison Officers?
All the syndicates will make presentations based on their interactive session with different State Prison Officers, Academicians, Representatives from NGOs and students. It will be followed by an open house interaction, in which participants will be encouraged to interact to share their problems, ideas and experiences in connection with their day-to- day work in prisons as well as dealing with prison inmates.
The Conference is expected to benefit the participants being in their impressionable stage of service, by implementation of the knowledge gained through the Conference. Repeated exposure/training will inculcate attitudinal change and reorientation of work culture of officers, leading to tangible deliverables. The sharing of best practices will motivate the prison officers and correctional staff and encourage others to evolve and adopt similar practices in their districts. It will help acquire latest technology to provide citizen-centric services in a time bound manner. The Uniformed Woman Officers will navigate towards gender equality in working environment. It will help bridge the gap between theory and practice through exchange of ideas.
The BPR&D charter includes study of problems affecting the Prison Administration and promotion of research and training in this field. Our country has 1401 prisons, 17834 women prison inmates and around 3200 women officers out of the 55000 total prison officers and staff. Review and discussion on circumstances and environment under which prison officers discharge their duties is imperative in the context of the objectives of correctional administration including reformation rehabilitation and re-socialisation of prison inmates.