5.3 Alternatives to Prison in Nepal

The statutory faces (the modern Nepal's framework): The Criminal Offences (Determination of Sentences and Execution) Act 2074 — the alternatives' codification: the community service (the petty offender's penalty — the government-and-community work); the probation (the conditional liberty's supervision — the probation officer's new institutional face); the open-and-semi-open imprisonment (the trusted prisoner's work-and-life outside the walls); the parole (the life-sentence's earned review — the served-years' threshold-and-board's machinery); the sentence's suspension-and- review faces; The Children's Act 2075 — the juvenile diversion: the diversion's priority (the child's non- prosecution's routes); the community-based corrections; the reform-home's last-resort (the child's custody's minimisation); the child-friendly justice's procedures; The Crime Victim Protection Act 2075's reparation face — the compensation's alternative function; The Muluki Criminal Code 2074's penalty-range flexibility (the fine's-and-censure's wider use; the compensation orders); The practice's honest audit: the prison's dominance persists (the overcrowding's chronic state — the central jails'-and-district prisons' population; the undertrials' share — the unconvicted majority's scandal); the alternatives' implementation gap (the probation's-and-parole's machinery's infancy — the officers, the boards, the budget); the bailing practice's failure as the detention's driver (the bail's denial = the prison's filling — the procedural law's link); the judicial culture's shift (the alternatives' awareness-and-use's gradual growth — the Sentencing Act's training era). The reform agenda (the essay's close): the undertrial's reduction (the bail's liberalisation; the case-flow's management); the…