News
Hell is better than life in Lanka’s prisons
- From rats, cockroaches and mosquitoes to ill-lit overcrowded cells, muddy kitchens infested with flies and shopping bags used as makeshift toilets in the night, HRCSL study exposes inhuman, nauseous and ghastly conditions inside the country’s jails
- Survey shows detention conditions are far below “the threshold of basic living standards”; the nation’s prisons breed criminality, corruption and recidivism with little rehabilitation
Provision of services to which prisoners are entitled, including access to healthcare and opportunities for rehabilitation, are poor because “the level of occupancy of the prisons is manifold its capacity”, the 863-page HRC Prison Study states.
With a severe staff shortage, officers were overworked and experienced job dissatisfaction and mental distress. Remuneration is inadequate and not commensurate with the difficult and even dangerous work environment.
Prisons were found to be “overcrowded and dysfunctional” with high risk of breeding criminality, corruption and recidivism as opportunities for rehabilitation were minimal.
Accommodation is in wards, which are large halls where multiple prisoners are detained, or cells, which are designed for individuals but now hold between three and eight in most prisons due to overcrowding. Some prisons also use them to detain inmates who commit disciplinary offences.
Sixty-seven percent and 64 percent of the Commissions’ total male and female samples, respectively, said they were in prison for the first time–that is more than half the prison population. But despite this, in almost all prisons visited inmates were not segregated based on whether they are first offenders or recidivists.
“What do you think we can do about separating prisoners?” a senior jailor at Welikada asked the Commission. “One of the biggest problems is that the man who comes in for being drunk in the street goes out as a drug addict and gets involved in drug dealing. The boy who comes to prison for stealing something from a shop goes out as an underling of a mafia boss.”
Every prison had people who don’t use or indulge in contraband, an inmate told the Commission. The authorities knew who they were. So, they should gather the good people–who behaved well and followed prison rules–and grant them benefits.
“This way you can incentivise prisoners to be better people,” the inmate suggested. “Instead of doing this, the system makes good people like us also to think that it’s better to go down that road because the people involved in these illegal activities live like kings and have a better life here.”
Both prisoners and prison officers said a significant portion of inmates suffers some form of mental illness, such as depression. Their assessments were based not on medical diagnosis but on observations of symptoms which they construed to mean the prisoner was in a depressive state or not of good mental health.
Sometimes, especially if there is a pre-incarceration clinical diagnosis, prison administration would place such inmates in a ward for those with mental illnesses. This has led occupants to be classified as ‘crazy’, resulting in discrimination.
The Commission did not see a dedicated ward for prisoners with psychiatric illnesses in every prison. Even when there was one, its conditions—given the vulnerability of the occupants—weren’t ideal. They often served to exacerbate the state of prisoners.
For example, there were just two lights in the corridor in the relevant ward of the Pallekele Closed Prison and none in the cells. It was dark even in daytime. At the Angunukolapelessa Closed Prison, not only were there no lights, inmates were not allowed to come out of the ward.
The study found that 23 percent of total male respondents and 56 percent of total female respondents were incarcerated for drugs-related arrests or charges. Many prisoners said they have repeatedly asked prison administrators not to house them with those jailed for drug-related offences.
Drug offenders who might not be drug dependents—but are known to be, or have been, dealers—are not separated from the rest either. This could create space for vulnerable non-drug offenders (such as those without livelihood, marginalised and living in poverty) to become drawn into the drug trade.
The Commission did not observe standard size cells during inspections. As to the allocation of floor space per prisoner in various prisons, the usual number of inmates sleeping in one cell was three to five. There were deviations to this, such as in the Badulla Remand Prison where, on the day of inspection, its five-cell A2 Ward had 52 inmates.
Overcrowding was at its peak mostly in wards which housed remandees. The Colombo Remand Prison B Ward had 196 remandees and C Ward had 199 remandees on the night before the Commission’s visit. The A1 Ward of Kegalle Remand Prison was overcrowded with 106 remandees.
Overcrowding is the obvious reason for the legally stipulated floor space not being available to inmates. It was observed that almost every jail was overcrowded, except perhaps open prisons and work camps. Building new prisons and relocating existing congested prisons to rural areas—where large plots of land are available—is being discussed as a solution to overcrowding.
But relocation without planning and foresight could lead to complications, warned K Bandara, the Superintendent of the Colombo Remand Prison at the time. If prisons were moved to “the middle of nowhere”, the courts would also have to shift because inmates couldn’t be brought from out of Colombo every day.
“Imagine prison buses being stuck in the Colombo traffic,” he reflected. “Think of it from a security point of view. A prison break or a shooting can happen in a flash.”
Relocation plans have been in the pipeline for more than a decade. This is one reason many structural and systemic issues–including infrastructural issues, such as repairing old or dilapidated buildings or building new wards–have not been addressed, other prison officers said.
Wards and cells in most prisons had inadequate natural light. The reasons varied from insufficient windows and vents to structural issues (such as some wards being built in a way no direct sunlight was received). Prisoners hanging personal belonging on windows or intentionally covering windows or vents to protect themselves, mostly from mosquitoes and pigeons, also blocked daylight.
Only in some prisons did each cell have a bulb that functioned at night. There weren’t any prisons with a bulb in each cell of every ward. In almost all prisons, there wasn’t enough light for night reading without causing harm to eyesight.
There was also insufficient natural ventilation in wards, the main reason being the structure of the buildings. Some of them are over 100 years old, such as the ward for elderly prisoners at the Negombo Remand Prison which was built in the 1890s. Some are archeologically protected (Galle Remand and Badulla Remand), so structural modifications are banned.
Ventilation is also hampered by prisoners hanging their belongings around the ward and intentionally covering vents to guard against pests. But for a handful of wards, most prisons had no fans. The temperature inside was usually hot and humid.
The Commission hardly came across any pest control being implemented, except in Mahara Closed Prison where “mosquito fogging” was taking place. Officers in most jails claimed fumigators visited regularly, mainly to control the mosquito population which is quite high because of stagnant drains.
The rat population too is high, mainly because there is no regular and efficient garbage disposal mechanism. Almost every prison had a dustbin at the end of the ward, attracting rats. Drainage pipes acted as tunnels for the rats to come inside, even when doors and windows were closed.
The garbage also caused an increased population of domestic flies and cockroaches. There were serious infestations of bed bugs in many prison wards. At the Batticaloa Remand Prison, for instance, the research team could not sit on the floor of the ward for even a few seconds before being bitten.
Roofing or ceilings in wards needed serious repairs. Inmates would often paste x-ray and polythene sheets over deteriorated ceilings to prevent pieces falling. Some prison buildings are too old to house inmates but are still in use.
There were patterns regarding the quality of food served to male and female prisoners of all categories. The main point is that prisons do not have cooks. Inmates with no experience in cooking mass-scale meals or knowledge of nutrition work in the kitchen.
Most inmates that felt it was futile to complain to the authorities about the unsatisfactory conditions of the diet served, either as their complaints wouldn’t be heard or for fear of reprisal. The Commission observed that food was prepared in kitchens where the floor was always damp and muddy. There were swarms of flies, and cats and rats roaming around the area.
At Negombo Remand Prison, inmates were seen bathing inside the kitchen. The Superintendent took immediate action when it was brought to his notice. However, bathing inside the kitchen seemed to be a common practice among the kitchen party inmates.
Inmates had difficulty accessing toilets at night. In wards with cells that are locked at night, they could not access the toilet so buckets were used to hold waste overnight. When there are none, shopping bags are used, such as at Galle Remand Prison, Welikada and Kandy Remand Prison.