INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM ON SENTENCING AND PRISON ADMINISTRATION

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This International Colloquium, convened under Project EXPUN, a collaborative research initiative between NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, and the University of Bergen, Norway, brings together judges, prison administrators, mental health professionals, and legal scholars from both jurisdictions to engage in a structured and critical dialogue on sentencing, the administration of imprisonment, and the potential of community-based alternatives. 

The colloquium proceeds from the understanding that sentencing is not merely a judicial exercise in determining the quantum of punishment, but a consequential decision that shapes lived custodial realities, implicates human rights guarantees, and places demands on correctional systems. Imprisonment, once ordered, must be operationalised within resource constrained institutions that struggle to balance security, reformative goals, and humane treatment. In this context, the discussion will also examine community sentencing : including probation, restorative justice models, and other non-custodial sanctions as a potential alternative capable of achieving sentencing objectives without exacerbating institutional strain. 

India and Norway, despite their differing legal traditions and correctional philosophies, confront similar tensions: between retribution and rehabilitation, between consistency and individualized justice, between punitive deterrence and therapeutic approaches, and between aspirational institutional ideals and everyday administrative constraints. This colloquium seeks to surface and interrogate these tensions through structured engagement with those directly involved in the system: judges who sentence(d), prison officers who administer(ed) sentences, and mental health professionals who witness(ed) the consequences of both.

The format emphasises lived experience and practical challenges over abstract theorisation.  By foregrounding practitioners alongside academics, the colloquium aims to generate grounded reflections drawn from courtrooms, custodial institutions, and correctional services. The ultimate objective is to identify shared challenges, compare institutional responses, and develop informed, actionable pathways for reform in both jurisdictions.

Session I: The Sentencing Dilemma – Discretion, Disparity, and the Search for Coherence in Imprisonment
This session will focus specifically on the judicial decision to impose imprisonment and the determination of its duration. It will examine the enduring tension between judicial discretion in awarding custodial sentences and the need for principled consistency in depriving individuals of liberty. In India, concerns regarding wide disparities in terms of imprisonment, the absence of structured sentencing frameworks, reversals in serious criminal cases, and debates on the possible use of artificial intelligence in sentencing have sharpened questions about fairness in custodial punishment. In Norway, dilemmas relating to preventive detention, drug-related imprisonment, and the treatment of offenders with mental health vulnerabilities raise equally complex issues regarding the justification and extension of incarceration.

The session will engage participants around the following themes:
• Balancing Judicial Intuition and Experience with the Risk of Arbitrariness in Sentencing
• Discretion vis-à-vis Disparity in relation to Sentencing Variability • Ensuring Consistency while Weighing Mitigating and Aggravating Circumstances
• Balancing Public Expectations with Constitutional Proportionality in Sentencing

Session II: Outcome Based Sentencing: Rethinking the Impact of Imprisonment
This session will examine the emerging need to evaluate imprisonment in India through an outcome-oriented lens. With overcrowding exceeding capacity in many states, a high proportion of undertrial prisoners, and limited rehabilitative infrastructure, custodial sentencing often produces consequences that extend far beyond the intended punishment. The discussion will interrogate whether Indian courts, while determining imprisonment, should consider the measurable social and institutional outcomes of incarceration, including recidivism, reintegration challenges, mental health deterioration, and the systemic strain on prisons.

The session will engage participants around the following themes:
• Consideration of Prison Overcrowding and Institutional Capacity in Custodial Sentencing
• Effectiveness of Short-Term Imprisonment in Achieving Deterrent and Reformative Goals
• Incorporating Empirical Data on Recidivism and Rehabilitation into Sentencing Policy
• Impact of Systemic Prison Deficiencies on the Choice between Custodial and Non-Custodial Sanctions
• Evaluating the Criminogenic Effects of Incarceration

Session III: Custodians of Custody: Structural Challenges and Operational Realities
This session will examine the widening gap between statutory mandates governing prisons and the ground realities of prison administration in India. Chronic overcrowding, significant staff vacancies, infrastructural deficiencies, and the disproportionately high number of undertrial prisoners continue to strain correctional institutions. While policy narratives frequently highlight reformative programmes and modernisation initiatives, this session seeks to provide a critical reality check on these perceived achievements by assessing whether prison administration is genuinely equipped to meet the outcomes intended by incarceration. The discussion will interrogate whether the existing custodial infrastructure meaningfully supports the objectives articulated by courts at the time of sentencing, or whether structural limitations dilute, distort, or defeat those intended outcomes.

The session will engage participants around the following themes:
• ⁠ Evaluating reform initiatives: perception versus measurable correctional outcomes
• ⁠ Infrastructure limitations and their influence on the effectiveness of custodial sentences
• The role of prison officers in translating judicial sentencing goals into operational reality

Session IV: Confinement and Consciousness: Effectiveness and Limits of Cognitive Interventions in Prisons
This session examines the role of cognitive interventions in meaningfully advancing the reformative goals of imprisonment within the correctional system. Programmes such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), deaddiction counselling, anger management, educational initiatives, and restorative practices are increasingly used to promote attitudinal change and reduce recidivism. They are premised on the belief that criminal behaviour can be reshaped through structured psychological engagement. However, their effectiveness must be assessed against structural realities such as overcrowding, staff shortages, limited professional expertise, and the absence of systematic outcome measurement. The session will critically evaluate whether cognitive interventions produce measurable behavioural transformation or merely create a perception of reform within a constrained custodial environment.

The session will engage participants around the following themes:
• The reformative objective of imprisonment and cognitive approaches
• Measuring effectiveness: recidivism and reintegration outcomes
• Cognitive dissonance and behavioural change in prisons
• Structural and institutional limits of reformative programming
• Sustainability of cognitive transformation post-release