Stricter controls on narcotics entering Sri Lanka’s prisons may be one of the factors behind the disturbances reported at several facilities this week, according to the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board.

Pradeep Koholanegedara, deputy director of the NDDCB, told NewsFirst that tightening restrictions on the flow of drugs into correctional facilities appears to be contributing to tensions and clashes among inmates.

Two distinct causes

Koholanegedara said prison conflicts generally arise from two separate sources. One is organised and coordinated confrontation between groups of inmates. The other is directly connected to prisoners experiencing withdrawal after losing access to narcotics.

Drug dependency creates a powerful physical and psychological need for continuous consumption, he said. When access is suddenly restricted, addicts often experience severe withdrawal symptoms that can result in agitation, aggression and disruptive behaviour.

Recent incidents suggest both organised elements and drug-related factors may be at play, he added.

A long-standing pattern

Koholanegedara pointed to a pattern within the prison system in which some people with drug addictions have preferred imprisonment to rehabilitation. There have been instances of suspects opting for prison sentences rather than being referred to rehabilitation centres, he said — which raises questions about how readily narcotics were available inside prisons in the past.

He argued that the current unrest also reflects the effectiveness of measures now being taken. The fact that drug-related agitation is surfacing at all, he said, may indicate that prison authorities are successfully enforcing tighter controls and significantly limiting the availability of narcotics behind bars.

His comments align with the account given to Parliament by Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala, who said the immediate factors identified in the wave of unrest across four prisons include drug-related and underworld-linked activity. The disturbance at New Magazine Prison on Thursday night was reported to have begun when inmates tried to reach a parcel of narcotics thrown into the prison grounds.

Sources: NewsFirst.