Prisoners’ plight

Following recent incidents at the Anuradhapura and Welikada prisons, prisoners’ rights groups have used the media glare to once more flag longstanding issues surrounding overcrowding, politicisation, and general shortcomings in the national prisons system.

State Minister Lohan Ratwatte’s jaunt to the two prisons, where he was alleged to have threatened detainees at gunpoint while heavily inebriated – allegations which he has since denied, despite them being tacitly acknowledged during the process of his resignation from his prisons-related ministerial portfolio – have drawn the ire of rights groups, who say this highlights the heavily politicised nature of the prisons system in the country, with them pointing out the alleged efforts to cover up Ratwatte’s actions as further proof of the corrupt nature of the system in place at the moment. 

Further to this, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, prisoners’ rights activists have also been highly critical of the overcrowding within prisons that has made maintaining health and safety measures almost impossible. According to the Department of Prisons, over 19,000 prisoners are currently incarcerated in 28 prisons across the country, yet these prisons are only meant to accommodate 11,000.

The fact remains that Sri Lankan prisons have long been notorious for being congested, poorly supplied and badly funded to the point that in 2016, following an observational visit, the United Nations Special Rapporteur had criticised the prison system as being characterised by very deficient infrastructure and pronounced overcrowding, something which has led to a situation in which there was an acute lack of adequate sleeping accommodation, extreme heat and insufficient ventilation. 

Overpopulation also resulted in limited access to medical treatment, recreational activities or educational opportunities. The UN insisted that these conditions combined resulted in a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of people.

Indeed, levels of population have been observed to exceed capacity by well over 200% or 300%. The Vavuniya Remand Prison in particular has been a striking example of overcrowding. At the time of the UN visit, one of its halls hosted 170 prisoners, which gave 0.6 metres of space per person. In the same building, other prisoners were forced to sleep on the staircase for lack of space in the detention areas. In addition, cells designed for one person were occupied by four or five inmates. 

The cause for this overcrowding is no mystery; congested prisons are a direct result of lengthy sentences for non-violent and drug-related offences. Suspects are subjected to lengthy remand periods with many being detained for years and some even up to 10-15 years. 

Over the years, activists have urged Sri Lanka to consider measures to make more non-violent offences bailable and to experiment with alternatives to incarceration. Ironically, one of the key points that had been presented in the past as justification for the return of the death penalty was that convicted drug smugglers were directing operations from within prisons. However, this is largely due to a corrupt and inefficient system that has many failures and oversights across the system. 

In that sense, the Justice Minister’s recent comments about no longer looking at prisons as punishment facilities, but rather correctional facilities, is a welcome one; but unless the growing politicisation and overcrowding issues are simultaneously addressed, the root causes of Sri Lanka’s fraying prisons system will remain.