The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would constitute a committee under the chairmanship of its retired judge to look in to the problems in jails including overcrowding and suggest measures to tackle it . This is not the first time that the issue of prison reforms has come to the forefront . In fact this issue has been debated in the public domain for quite some time. There are 1387 functional jails in India with a total capacity to house approximately 3.5 Lakh prisoners but the total number of prisoners in these jails is around 4.18 Lakhs . Some jails in the country are overcrowded by more than 100 percent and a few by margins of a staggering 500 percent .