TS Prison dept's initiative Unnati may go national

Hyderabad: Unnati, an initiative launched by the Telangana Prisons department in 2015 with an aim to curtail recidivism is likely to be implemented in other States in the country with the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) seeking more details on the initiative.

As many as 2,600 repeat offenders underwent training conducted as part of Unnati programme. Of them, 2,200 were released and only 400 came back to the prison again. As the programme was yielding positive results, BPR&D has evinced interest to implement the programme in prisons in other States.

Since 2015, the cognitive behavioural change intervention for prisoners was planned for accomplishing the five R’s – reason, reset goals, reform remain, responsible, return not to prison. It has now resulted in curtailing recidivism, State Institute of Correctional Administration (SICA) Principal M Sampath said.

According to him, repeat offenders mainly comprise property offenders, drunk drivers, land grabbers, illicitly distilled liquor sellers and those involved in domestic violence cases. Former head of Osmania University Department of Psychology Prof Beena was assisting in counseling these offenders, he said.

She selected prisoners who have good oratory skills and trained them in conducting training sessions to repeat offenders in their respective prisons. Each batch consisting of 30 members would undergo training in 12 aspects, right from discipline, psychological therapy to de-addiction and other core issues in a 20-day session.

“Once the repeated offender is released, we will collect the feedback and accordingly take action. If necessary, counseling will be conducted again for those who return to the jail,” Sampath explained.

A separate session would be conducted allowing family members of the offenders to have lunch with them. During several such occasions, offenders have broke down and vowed not to repeat the same mistake. Another session would focus on the reasons that forced persons to commit an offence. Priority would be given to control aggressiveness also, he said.