In my younger years, two Urdu magazines were widely read in Pakistan: Suspense and Jasoosi Digest. Their readers may remember a fictional character, Batthal, a minor offender who turns into a hardened criminal after spending a few years in prison.
He later morphs into a don. As the story progresses, the reader is subtly told how jails often serve as a nursery for criminals. Many of them keep on returning to their ‘alma mater’ for ‘advanced studies’. Sadly, unlike civilised parts of the world, where jails serve as rehabilitation centres, in Pakistan, they nurture evil talents. Serving time is often worn as a badge of honour by felons.
It is striking how inconsistently we apply the law. Drug addicts who need medical treatment are thrown behind bars, where they are supplied with the substances, they were addicted to, just so they can survive withdrawals. Likewise, young boys are booked for “obscene acts” if no one can explain their offense, and petty beggars, whose only crime, it seems, is their poverty, are arrested under vagrancy laws. The homeless are dragged to courtrooms instead of shelters, and street vendors frequently face legal penalties simply for trying to eke out a meagre living.
Our citizens often find themselves wondering, isn’t a legal system meant to deliver justice, not add insult to injury?
No wonder the scales are heavily tipped in Pakistan. Where there ought to be rehabilitation, there is retribution. Where the law should protect, it punishes. And where the powerful ought to be held accountable, it is usually the weak and vulnerable who end up paying.
Pakistan’s prison system is extremely overcrowded due to excessive pre-trial detention. As of November 2024, the country’s 128 prisons, built for 66,625 inmates, were holding 108,643 prisoners—a 163.07 per cent occupancy rate. Among these prisoners, 98.2 per cent are men, 1.1 per cent are women, and 0.7 per cent are juveniles. Rehabilitation programmes were reserved only for convicts. Delays in judicial proceedings are responsible for a staggering 70 per cent of the under-trial prison population.
Our legal framework is full of contradictions. We have many progressive laws, but these usually remain unenforced due to a mix of bureaucratic inertia, political considerations, or deliberate non-compliance. Meanwhile, others, written in vague and problematic terms, have become tools for selective repression. The legal system has been gradually moulded into an instrument of control.
For example, the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act of 2020 is meant to safeguard women. It has proven largely ineffective because of police reluctance and societal stigma. Conviction rates in cases pertaining to violence against women hover between a measly 1-2 per cent, discouraging victims from seeking justice and leaving them victims caught between a rock and a hard place.
Likewise, the Juvenile Justice System Act of 2018 mandated separate trials for minors, but nearly 1,500 juvenile offenders remain incarcerated; many tried as adults due to flawed age verification procedures.
Bureaucratic red tape delayed any meaningful implementation of the Right to Information Act, which was aimed at ensuring transparency. The Environmental Protection Act of 1997 largely remains ignored. The Police Order of 2002 was introduced to improve policing, but several provinces rolled it back. As a result, our law-enforcement agencies remain subservient to political interests.
On the other hand, blasphemy laws, which were originally conceived to prevent communal violence, are now used to settle personal vendettas. About 1,500 people were charged under these rules, most of them were falsely, between 2011 and 2023. Past research by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) indicates that 80 per cent of all blasphemy cases lacked any strong evidence.
Since 1990, the HRCP says, at least 80 suspects have been lynched without any investigation or trial.
The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) is one of the most problematic laws. It was supposed to combat cybercrime; instead, it has been used to silence dissent. More than 60 per cent of all defamation cases filed under PECA have targeted journalists and activists.
Similarly, the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997, drafted to counter extremist violence, is frequently invoked in cases involving routine crime and even protests and political dissension. Over 38,800 cases have been registered under it since it was passed into law.
Our Exit Control List (ECL) was supposed to stop criminals from fleeing justice; it now prevents 4,863 individuals from international travel. Some 3,000 names are pending removal amid concerns over its misuse. Likewise, the Control of Narcotic Substances Act of 1997 disproportionately targets small offenders, while major drug cartels evade meaningful prosecution. Consider the records: in 2022–23, the police force registered a total 163,468 cases involving narcotics and made 166,888 arrests, but only 26,322 convictions were secured.
Pakistan also has many skeletons in its closet from the past. Colonial-era laws such as Section 124-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (which deals with sedition) and the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960 are often used to silence critics and control dissent.
Now is the time to draw lessons from global best practices. Countries that have worked on harm reduction and moved to decriminalise smaller offenses have reported good results. According to a report—Drug Policy Alliance. Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Health & Human-Centered Approach published in August 2023—Portugal decriminalised drug possession in 2001 and prioritised the rehabilitation of addicts instead of jailing them. This led to an 80 per cent drop in drug-related deaths.
Another report published in 2024, FEANTSA. Homelessness Strategy in the Netherlands (2024), states that the Netherlands reduced homelessness by 50 per cent over a decade by replacing punishment with social housing programmes. Germany’s NetzDG Law imposed strict regulations on online hate speech but also introduced media literacy programmes and independent oversight to prevent state overreach.
Decriminalisation shifts the focus from punishment to crime prevention, rehabilitation, and institutional transformation, wit absolving responsibility. The certainty of a moderate punishment always achieves more than the fear of excessive punishment that is never enforced, as legal thinker Cesare Beccaria noted in his work, On Crimes and Punishments (1764).
The degree to which a nation upholds citizen rights determines its justice system, not the number of laws it has passed. It is time to decriminalise several petty offences. This is not an academic or ideological demand—it is becoming imperative, given the state of our overburdened justice system and overcrowding in our penitentiaries.
Delaying reforms will merely kick the can down the road, prolonging the injustices being suffered by the weak. Pakistan must strive for a legal system that upholds the dignity of citizens rather than one that seeks to punish trivial transgressions. We must shift from punitive control to restorative justice before the house of cards comes crashing down.
