KOCHI: The Borstal School at Kakkanad in Kochi, a detention facility for juveniles, would soon get a facelift. The prisons department has submitted a rough draft to the government for renovation and new infrastructure costing nearly Rs 1.3 crore.For many years the Borstal functioned like a dingy, cramped jail and juveniles who were admitted here had no hope of turning over a new leaf. But the school is attempting to revive itself as a reform facility, and recently the floors have been tiled giving it an appearance of a correctional facility than that of a prison.Binu, a 20-year-old from Idukki, was admitted to the institution for the third time for robbing a priest who was trying to rehabilitate him. He had spent most of his time growingup at juvenile homes and was admitted to Borstal School two months ago. “He is no criminal mastermind. He stole the phone from the priest and went to a nearby store to sell it and got caught. He had a pretty rough childhood, with parents not giving much attention to him and he could not complete his education,” said K J Thomas, superintendent of the Borstal School, who believes that Binu has a chance if given the right care and attention.R Sreelekha, director general of prisons, said that currently the facility was in a poor condition and they expected these issues to be resolved with the renovations.“The boys are at a reformative age. We want to convert this borstal into a modern educational training centre and renovate the existing structure so that the inmates do not feel that they are shut down in a dungeon. “Plans are afoot to provide personality development classes in smart classrooms to the inmates so that they won’t feel that they are in prison but at a reform house,” said Sreekala.Prisons department has already collected details about setting up a high-tech classroom that are already being implemented in staterun schools in the district to provide the vocational classes for the inmates.Furthermore, in the new building that would be constructed, there will be a library and reading hall to engage the inmates. There are around 3,000 books at the school now.Apart from this, there is also plan to have a hospital facility with a full-time doctor and a psychologist.At present, there are 17 cells occupied by 54 inmates. Most of them have been convicted for theft, while there are also juveniles serving time for murder and Pocso-related cases.Prison department officials said that the biggest challenge in reforming the students would be that they would be in the borstal facility for a short period of time, but with these reforms to borstal would go a long way in helping the youth rather than sending them spiralling into a world of crime and conflict with the law.Sreelekha said that they would soon submit a detailed proposal as per the request of the government and that expect the renovations to be complete by the end of next year.

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