Rape in Prison

                             Rape in Prison

Prison is an institution in the society which is made for the people who did not abide by the laws of the society and caused disruption and distraction in that. It also acts as a reformative institution which helps the people to change themselves whereby they can be accepted among the people of the society. And since it is the part of the society, crime exists here also. To be more precise, the culture of rape or sexual harassment or sexual violence does exist in this reformative institution called prison also.

But as widely accepted and stated under the Section 375 of Indian Penal Code, 1860, Rape is defined as the ‘Sexual intercourse with a woman against her will, without her consent, by coercion, misrepresentation or fraud or at a time when she has been intoxicated or duped, or is of unsound mental health and in any case she is less than 18 years of age’. In this regard, it is important to note that in the definition of rape under law, the word ‘woman’ is mentioned from which it can be inferred that the law of the land will recognize rape only when the sexual undercourse happened with a ‘woman’. 

The reason behind the mention of woman in the definition of rape is that the society does not recognize rape when it is committed against the man or a transgender. That is why there is also no explicit law under the Indian Penal Code, 1860 which criminalizes the sexual undercourse committed against man forcefully or against his will.

This becomes worse and vulnerable for the men who are there in the prison and sexually harassed or tortured. Their private parts are touched by their prison inmates in order to have a sexual undercourse with them. The reason behind this is that men believe that they are homosexuals. In that regard, they need to fulfill their sexual desires even with a man also if a woman is not present. The only thing matter is the fulfillment either by consent or by forcefully. It is a very rigorous act and often termed as ‘common’. Sometimes the act is performed willfully by giving temptation or luring for different things and sometimes it is done forcefully. But anyway it doesn’t matter. The method is immaterial.

As per the research, the newly admitted people in the prison are more vulnerable by their old inmates as they are not aware of the culture prevailing in the prison be it the laws, policies, staffs, rules and regulations. They do not know that these are very stringent in nature and made for the sole purpose of making them a law-abiding citizen from a non-law abiding citizen. With these rules and regulations, the old prisoners already residing become so strong and powerful that they commit acts against their new inmates and the new ones are unable to do anything. They don’t even have the option of complaining this to the authorities and the staffs because they are not sympathetic towards them. They don’t pay any heed to it because they have a mindset that these people deserve this only. They should not get any mercy as the only thing they see is that these people are criminals and since they have caused so many sufferings to other people they deserve it. This is their karma forgetting the fact that they are sent here for the transformation. 

At last, they are left with no option because neither they can leave the place nor complain to anyone regarding this because the law does not take cognizance of rape when it is committed against a man. That is why, it is very important for the law makers to work in the direction of making the offence of rape as gender neutral.