Students to be roped in to help mentally ill prisoners
Times of India | 5 August 2024
Kolkata: The state higher education department has suggested that postgraduate psychology students from private and state-aided universities be roped in to address mental health issues among prisoners in various state correctional facilities. Currently, 625 prisoners, including both under-trials and convicts, are suffering from mental disabilities.
The department has recommended that involvement of PG students should be restricted to conducting tests and computational purpose and individual needs of the inmates should be catered to only by trained mental health professionals.
On Jan 18, 2021, the Calcutta High Court instituted a suo motu writ to bring relief to Nepalese citizen Dipak Joshi, who had been arrested in 1980 and remained an undertrial prisoner for 40 years. Joshi was released and sent back to Nepal and the court took this opportunity to further inquire into the situation of prisoners with mental disabilities in correctional homes across the state.
The division bench of Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Ajay Kumar Gupta on Feb 5 directed the state and state legal services authority (SLSA) to formulate a policy to engage qualified psychologists and include trainee psychologists from recognised universities for counselling and assistance to undertrials and convicts who are suffering from mental depression and allied ailments.
In the draft SOP submitted by the higher education department to SLSA, they have proposed a three-phase approach. For the first phase, they have suggested selection, training and sensitization of psychologists with at least a Masters degree in psychology.
The students will be selected in the first phase which was recommended to focus on creating manpower. These students will then be given a training. The students and scholars will have to undertake fieldwork under the supervision of subject experts.
The second phase includes periodic visits to prisons and conducting interviews as well as perusal of case history and past records. The third phase would focus on dealing with the inmates on one-to-one basis. Here, treatment will be provided by mental health professionals.