History

The word Lal Dalan (red building) has been transmitted from generation to generation. Heavy, high wall all
around and human child imprisoned in iron lock-up inside those. His sorrow-pain, distress-anguish doesnt
touch our speedy normal life. Being burnt in self-distress in the closed rooms, some become pure gold; a
darling son and some are lost in the darkness of no limit. Isnt there any question that how this mysteriousseparate world surrounded by walls on all four sides was built in the same world? It is to mention that once all
infrastructures of this world were covered in red.
It is difficult to find out the proper table of contents regarding the origin of prison or jail. To the historians, this
subject is yet to be disclosed. So far it is known from the past of jail management that St Briget well; a large
building of London was marked as the first prison in 1552. In 1597, British government took an enterprise to
establish many jails realizing the necessity of jail from many aspects related to state, society. It was ordered to
set up jails in every county of London in 1600 AD. At the preliminary stage, the matter of physical work and
regularity of prisoners in these jails was looked at. But the concept of Gaol or Jail drew the attention a lot in
England in the eighteenth century because these Gaols were known as death-houses then. Men-women all
were kept in one room with scarce light and limited air. As a result, many women were harassed. In this
condition, reform of this system was done immediately after people had raised their voice against this. A social
person named John Howard contributed a lot to that jail reform. He visited the jails for many years (1773-1790
AD) and he was able to bring many changes in jail management through many of his writings based on
different information. In 1812 AD, first national prison Milk Bank was established in England. Milk Bank was
built with 3 km long baranda and hundreds of cells by spending 25 lac pounds whose construction work was
started in 1812 AD and completed in 1821 AD.
Wal Nut St. Jail of Philadelphia State was the first state prison established in United States in 1790 after the
freedom. Prisons in New York City and Maryland State were established respectively in 1796 and 1829 AD.
Later a school for prisoners was added to the jail in Maryland. In the prison of Georgia State, exemption from
imprisonment for two days a month for well manner and different types of punishment for bad manner was
introduced for the first time as a reward system in 1832 AD. Postal communication was provided to
communicate with the relatives in the prison of Vermont State in 1831 AD.
Specific information on prison and management of distant past is very limited in our sub-continent for the lack
of research. It is known that prisoners who get death sentences were tied up in a room for three days during
the reign of King Ashok of India. The existence of this kind of imprisonment was seen in the estate of Zemindar.
Prison management was in new form mainly after when the East India Company had arrived in sub-continent.
In 1818 Bengal Rule was announced in case of state prisoners arrests. Some district and Mohkuma(subdivision) jails of present time such as Dhaka, Rajshahi, Jessore, Comilla jails of Bangladesh were established
in that period. But the construction of Dhaka Jail got started by setting up a criminal ward in 1788 AD. A
combined procedure was established in all prison managements by introducing Code of rules in 1864 AD. A
Borstal Institute was first established in April, 1927 for adolescents in Bakura, India. In 1929, Presidency of
Kolkata, Alipur, Medinipur, Dhaka and Rajshahi were declared as central jails in the undivided Bengal. The
journey of Bangladesh Jail (B D J) started after Independence in 1971 with four central jails, thirteen district
jails and forty three sub-jails. Then the sub-jails were converted into district jails in 1997 as the number of
prisoners were increasing. At present, Bangladesh Jail is running its operation with thirteen central jails and fifty
five district jails.