13th Movie as it relates to India **DO NOT COPY**

13^th raises issues of prison population in India because India has the fifth highest prison population, at over 380,000 people and with the prisons running at 117% capacity, higher than the US’ 107%. The prison population in India increased by over 100,000 people between 200 and 2006, but only increased by about 10,000 between 2006 and 2012[1]. This shows a slowing of the imprisonment of Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis (the three most exploited groups), but there is still an insane amount of people being imprisoned. India also has a history of treating those awaiting trial the same as those who have been convicted, which is to say badly. Although the Indian Constitution mandates that the detainees be produced in front of a magistrate within 24 hours of arrest, most of their appearances result in the extension of their custody buy the police, usually without counsel or any real protest. The “undertrials” as they are called, spend months awaiting trials- trials that commonly end in acquittal[2]. Hundreds of Indians are given the death penalty, inconsistent with precedence, forcing a long appeals process that leaves inmates wondering if today will be their last[3]. Even those not sentenced to death fear for their lives. Some 111 deaths and 21 “disappearances” occurred in a five-year period from 1984 to 1989 in the state of Andhra Pradesh, all in police lock-ups. This mirrors what is exposed in “13^th”, and could lead to a similar line of investigation into the Indian penal system, despite the Supreme Court’s new focus on reforming the system[4].

Structuralist and culturalist perspectives seem the most compelling, as there is nothing rational about imprisoning a race in a flight of fancy. As discussed in the documentary, the South was devastated after the Civil War, and the abolition of slavery only exacerbated this, destroying their weakened economy. The free prison labor became ingrained in the structures of the South, just as slavery had been, and it was simply an extension of slavery to incarcerate tens of thousands of blacks. Culturalists would look at Nixon’s Chief of Domestic Policy’s statement about targeting blacks, the campaigns from Reconstruction onward that focused on safety, segregation and disenfranchisement and would conclude that discrimination against blacks was so ingrained in American society that the current system is inevitable.

Hobsbawm’s Nationalism informed my perspective, showing why it has been so hard to initiate change in American society. The black community has intellectuals, no doubt, but they feel removed from their poorer brethren and cannot spread the knowledge of why the community is being repressed as well as one who is ingrained in the community. Because the force that they are fighting is their nation, because they are overwhelmingly disenfranchised, because their leaders are imprisoned, and because they are not a unified front, blacks cannot express nationalism in the same way that the French did in the 1780s and 90s. Zakaria’s A Brief History of Human Liberty also informed my viewing. His piece describes how conflict and competition of powers increases liberty, which allowed me to see that because there has not been a real conflict over the governance of the black community since the Civil War, their liberty has no reason to have increased in that time. Many of their advancements were a result of the Civil Rights movement, led by Martin Luther King Jr., who competed with the President for social control of the black community, not the actual control.

I would endorse the current actions that the Indian Supreme Court is taking- comprehensive reform and oversight. I would recommend that they expand the reform, adding to it a system for public defenders (or their equivalent) to be compensated for their work (they aren’t at the time of writing). Removal of the caste system would also improve the prison system, eliminating the ingrained prejudices that lead to maltreatment of the lower castes and preferential treatment for the upper middle class.

Bibliography

Doshi, Vidhi. 2016. "India's Death Row Prisoners Face Horrific Conditions, Study Finds." The Guardian, May 6,.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/06/india-death-row-prisoners-horrific-conditions-study.

Human Rights Watch. 1991. Prison Conditions in India Human Rights Watch.

San, Shreeja. 2016. "Supreme Court Kicks Off Prison Reforms." Live Mint, Feb 06,.http://www.livemint.com/Politics/2GQAbPa6Wm2IeK4z1I6CUN/Supreme-Court-kicks-off-prison-reforms.html.

Subodh Varma. 2014. "Muslims, Dalits and Tribals make Up 53% of all Prisoners in India." The Times of India, Nov 25,.http://search.proquest.com/docview/1627142907.

World Prison Brief, Institute for Criminal Policy Research. "World Prison Brief Data: India." World Prison Breif.,http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/india.

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[1] World Prison Brief, Institute for Criminal Policy Research. "World Prison Brief Data: India." World Prison Breif.,http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/india.

[2] Human Rights Watch. 1991. Prison Conditions in India Human Rights Watch.

[3] Doshi, Vidhi. 2016. "India's Death Row Prisoners Face Horrific Conditions, Study Finds." The Guardian, May 6,.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/06/india-death-row-prisoners-horrific-conditions-study.

[4] San, Shreeja. 2016. "Supreme Court Kicks Off Prison Reforms." Live Mint, Feb 06,.http://www.livemint.com/Politics/2GQAbPa6Wm2IeK4z1I6CUN/Supreme-Court-kicks-off-prison-reforms.html.