Prison is good but I shouldn’t be here: perspectives from prisoners interviewed in an Indian jail

The researchers undertook a small research study in a prison in the Punjab region of India in September 2005. Qualitative research methods were used, involving semi-structured interviews and the researchers made use of local interpreters and transcription services. Originally the research proposed an analysis of the experiences of prison life for Indian prisoners against a comparative sample in an English prison to see if common themes and experiences could emerge in such geographically and ethnically diverse societies. However, the research highlighted some interesting themes involving judicial corruption in India that become central to our findings and this did not seem to be comparable to the English criminal justice system to the same degree. As a result, the researchers focused their study on the workings of the Indian penal system concentrating upon the ethos of the system, rehabilitation versus punishment ideologies and prisoner experiences of the Courts and subsequent custodial sentences. Our objective was to investigate the potentially different
experiences of prisoners in a country where it appears few Western criminologists have previously researched.

Also presented as a paper at the ANZSOC conference, Adelaide, 2007 and at British Criminology Conference, held in London, 2007.