The control of drug and mobile phone use within the prisons premises is difficult owing to overcrowding. The number of prisoners have increased by six fold in comparison to that of the actual number of prisoners that can be accommodated in jails, Galle Prison Superintendent Jagath Chandana Weerasinghe disclosed.
He was speaking at the Galle District Coordinating Committee (DCC) Meeting held at the Galle District Secretariat recently.
“The Galle Prisons can accommodate only 270 prisoners. However, we get an average of over 900 inmates regularly and sometimes the number exceeds 1200. As a result of the extreme congestion within the prisons, a great number of problems have cropped up,” he said.
“Among them the lack of sanitary facilities for the increasing numbers of prisoners is a serious impediment.
Furthermore, numerous administrative complications are posed due to the shortage of human and physical resources,” he further said.
Nearly sixty five per cent of the total number of inmates have been convicted over drug related offences,” he added.