India, Aug. 26 -- When jail cells built for one person must hold three or four or even five, everything suffers - from food to beds, medicine to sanitation. The line for a toilet starts before dawn, sleeping is in shifts, and the scramble for space can erupt into violence. Medical attention becomes a game of chance. Proximity breeds desperation - and exploitation. The strong prey on the weak. Sexual activity, wanted or not, is unavoidable. Rent-seeking for food, safety, or a phone call is backed by muscle, creating a subterranean economy of survival. Recently, too, Maharashtra's home minister acknowledged a national crisis too long ignored - overcrowded prisons. But Maharashtra is not even the worst of it. In state after state capital, central jails tell the story. Delhi's Tihar, built for 5,200, holds over 12,000 prisoners. Built for just about 1,000 inmates, Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai holds more than three times that number. Like Allahabad's Naini prison, Patna's Beur Central Jail holds twice the number of inmates than it should. The India Justice Report records that 55% of India's prisons exceeded capacity, and 176 held up to four times what they should have in 2022. With a staggering 497% overcrowding, Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad district prison shows how extreme the situation can get. The inhumanity is compounded by a thin, demotivated administration. Security staff run a national deficit of 30% to 40%. Care staff - doctors, counsellors, psychologists - are a passing presence. Daily operations depend heavily on long-term convicts. What is even more disconcerting is that two-thirds in these overcrowded barracoons are undertrials - not judged as guilty but locked up while the system decides when it will finish the investigation or trial, or are simply there because they cannot put up bail. Legally, they remain under the judiciary's care, yet are allowed to face dangers they would never have had to endure outside. With two-thirds of the prison population awaiting trial - often for months or years - who can deny that the system punishes before guilt is established? Here lies real-life tragedy. All duty holders know this - and accept it. This tolerance for the sub-human life lived by others normalises the breach of the rule of law. It mocks the constitutional principle that every citizen's life is more than mere animal existence. Of course, some efforts are underway. New policy directions are emerging through model prison rules and revised manuals. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) provisions speak of time-bound trials, plea bargaining, bail after a third of a sentence served, and community service as alternatives to incarceration. The Supreme Court keeps reminding: Arrest must be a last resort. Bail, not jail, should be the norm. A government fund now supports poor prisoners unable to furnish securities. A system of dedicated legal aid defence counsels is being tried out. Video conferencing is expanding, though there's nothing to show that it reduces incarceration or improves access to counsel. Some states are exploring open jails; others are refurbishing older facilities or planning new ones. But pipelines are long. From land acquisition to construction and staffing, it can take four to seven years to build a central jail. Even sub-jails take two to three years, that is under ideal conditions. Worryingly, there are counter-currents as well. Many archaic and overlapping laws remain on the books. A new Vidhi study found over 5,300 provisions that criminalise everything from dog-walking without a leash to collecting water without permission. The BNSS increases the number of offences, extends remand time, and lengthens some sentences. Harsh, non-bailable laws like the NDPS Act continue to flood the system. Despite the Supreme Court's caution on arrest, it remains a first reflex. Bail is still elusive; custody remains the default for over-cautious magistrates. Trial delays remain entrenched. And so the system groans on. Injustice is routine, suffering predictable. Too many duty holders look away. Oversight has faltered. Legally mandated boards of visitors are largely inactive. There is no functioning roster of visits by the bar, bench, or administrators-let alone human rights commissions. If such visits were regular and followed up, even a small measure of amelioration and accountability might take hold. Yet even this minimum remains largely unattempted. Reducing overcrowding is urgent if broader reforms are to stand on solid ground. As an immediate step, faltering systems of release and relief - like undertrial review committees - must be proactive. Oversight bodies like boards of visitors must be revived and made effective. Coordination with local authorities and regular reporting must be the norm. Civil society and active citizens must be trusted to assist with connecting up families, helping to find early representation, and bringing in activities that assist inmates' transition back into the outside world. But any real effort at true reformation and rehabilitation requires a radical imagination to be jogged into being. That means reordering the prison service, root to branch. The current system - where experienced warders and superintendents remain in lower cadres while police officers are parachuted in as temporary overseers - must go. Security dominating mindsets must give way to those oriented toward rehabilitation. Open prisons must move from concept to reality. Oversight must be active and accountability real. Wrongful arrests must be called out by the magistracy and lead to compensation. And beyond fiats from on high, the magistracy must be assisted and incentivised to exercise genuine scrutiny at first appearance. Wholesale reform still feels like a distant goal. But the recent attention in legislatures and Parliament offers a sliver of hope. The fact that so many active citizens, lawyers, and rights advocates continue to press at the fogged glass of State conscience keeps that hope alive. Selfishly, for our own safety, we all stand to gain if the system ensures people emerge from custody as ordinary citizens-not scarred menaces, warped by stranger-than-fiction experiences behind bars. Acknowledging the problem is a start. Now to go from recognition to repair....