Prison systems throughout the world are meant to ensure surveillance and control, nevertheless a humane face, for example, 'corrective justice' has been rhetorically used as a poster claim by the reformers of our age. The disciplinary power appears to be subtle and effective, penetrates human mind in a way a subject becomes the victim and predator of its own penetrative gaze. The syndrome of 'being observed' remains forever for no brute force appears to be too brutal to transform a subject as a disciplinary master of self.
Prisons across the world are overflown with the vulnerable people for they are the victim of their miserable living conditions. Most of the crimes are branded with a class character, for poor appear to be the most easiest target for authorities concerned who are responsible for the maintenance and sustainance of law and order. Prison reforms since Colonial times have been designed to help in the implementation of surveillance, for no other line of argument than Orwellian metaphor justifies with this exclamatory statement: "Big Brother is Watching You" (George Orwell, 1984). Jeremy Bentham, the reformer, who had the first claim over the title, the father of English Jurisprudence, came out with proposal of prison reform; an architecture of panopticon was proposed by him to help the concerned authorities in making of 'docile' subject (Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish).
The biggest strength of any criminal legal system rests with its capacity to create the frenzy and fearsome environment for the violators. The fear of crime divides people, in a way 'Jurisprudence of fear' functions like "Derridean arche-type" (Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology), writes and rewrites the psche of criminal Jurisprudence, fashionably known in academia, as criminolgy and penology. It is undeniable fact that the majority of prisoners are impoverished under trial prisoners in India, U.S., or Russia for that matter. Their socio-economic mileue reflects on an urgent and inevitable story to tell; a legal system is unimaginable under ethical school of thought, unless market principle decides the rule of the game. For lawyers are entitled to charge fee as much as they are willing to raise the bar. Has there been concern for the Gandhian "last human" (here I'm slightly twisting the Gandhian terminology to make it more gender sensitive term; though human as a term remains coloured with male experience) the focus would have sifted towards the stakeholders of justice. But the most of illiterate poor folks seem to be "included to be excluded" like Kafka's parable in The Trial, depicts a story 'sub-alterisation' of voiceless and spaceless (Georgio Agamben, Homo Sacer).
The privatization of prison system has been hazardous in the U.S. over the years. Any such attempt in India will yield some unforseen harmful effects for the "Wretched of the Earth" (Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth). Any such conversion of dignified human life into "bare life" (Hannah Arendt, The Totalitarian State) at the benefit of 'profit spirit' would be detrimental to the 'right of being human' jurisprudencial approach. Once the Private Prison is allowed to enter into the frame, the sole aim would be to facilitate a better surveillance mechanism with the help of panopticon like architecture, particularly the modern day technology, cyborgs, could be effectively used to control human psche with ease and efficacy. Any such move would only be able to fecilitate and justify my hypothesis that it is capability which helps in determining the fate of any subject under any given legal system. Business ethics has some inherent limits to buy and sell. Justice must be above any sorts of insinuation and prejudice. Once faith crumbles what remains there to protect human destiny?
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