Welcome Change: Making Open Prisons the norm in India

Kolkata-based social entrepreneur Smita Chakraburtty got a strange call one day as she was crisscrossing India researching inhumane conditions in prisons. The director general of Rajasthan's prisons had an emergency: the people imprisoned there did not want to leave. Why? The northern Indian state of Rajasthan has had an open prison system since the 1950s, where people are free to come and go, to live with their families and to work as long as they respect a daily curfew.

Smita immediately traveled there to speak with hundreds of people who are imprisoned and learn what was right with that system. Shortly thereafter, she founded Prison Aid & Action Research (Paar) to normalize open prisons across India.