The reformative theory of justice postulates removing the dangerous degeneracy in a criminal and afford them a chance to make a fresh start and lead an honest life. This ensures fundamental human dignity, a most essential constitutional and human right. The current penitentiary structure’s primary focus on punitive and retributive forms of punishment is ill-suited in safeguarding human dignity. The present jail administration in India is archaic, opaque and rife with abuses at systemic level. There is an urgent imperative for various prison reforms. An understanding is sought to be developed of the open prisons as a peno-correctional institution and their superiority over the more conventional forms of incarceration in ensuring both, the societal objective of penal sentencing and the human rights objective of successful reintegration of the prisoners upon their release.
