India Justice Report: Odisha 3rd In Policing & Among 3 States To Meet Model Prison Standard

New Delhi: Odisha is among only three states which meets the standard set out by Model Prison Manual, while the state is No. 3 in Policing among 18 large and mid-sized states ranked by India Justice Report 2020.

According to the Report, released on Thursday, there should be one correctional officer for every 200 prisoners and one psychologist/counsellor for every 500. Apart from Odisha (123), other states which have been found to follow the benchmark are Jammu & Kashmir (194) and Bihar (167).

As for Policing, Odisha secured a score of 5.59 out of 10 to be placed just behind Karnataka (5.71) and Chhattisgarh (5.63).

“Uttar Pradesh, despite a prison population of over 100,000, has sanctioned only two correctional officer posts; Jharkhand, with a far lower population of 18,654 inmates, has four,” the Report said.

As for judicial system, India has one judge for every 50,000 citizens, while one policeperson is responsible for safety of 858 people in India.

A Tata Trusts initiative, the India Justice Report has been compiled in collaboration with Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, DAKSH, TISS-Prayas, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and How India Lives.

The report ranked states overall on four pillars — judiciary, police, prisons and legal aid.

Maharashtra topped among large and mid-sized states, with a score of 5.77 out of 10, followed by Tamil Nadu and Telangana. Significantly, Uttar Pradesh was at the bottom of rankings, scoring 3.15 out of 10, ThePrint reported.

Among small states, Tripura was No. 1, and Meghalaya was last.