A total of 709 prisoners who fled custody before completing their sentences have never been re-arrested, according to a National Audit Office report included in the Department of Prisons’ 2025 annual report.
The audit found that 1,181 inmates and suspects escaped from prisons or from prison custody over the past six years. Of those, 709 remain unaccounted for. The Audit Office warned that leaving escaped prisoners free without re-arrest could pose a threat to public security.
The report also documents the scale of contraband communications inside the prison system. Officers seized 5,083 mobile phones from 22 prisons during 2025 alone, along with 2,432 mobile phone batteries, 970 chargers, 4,149 SIM cards and 3,111 other accessories.
The Audit Office recommended formal measures to stop such devices reaching prisoners, warning that their growing availability could feed illegal activity and underworld operations run from inside prison walls — and, in turn, threaten public security.
On overcrowding, the report records 825 prisoners held in the Welikada Prison female ward in 2025. It said rising numbers of prisoners and suspects at Magazine Prison and the Colombo Remand Prison have left facilities inadequate, creating difficulties for prison officers and inmates alike.
The auditors proposed easing congestion by upgrading facilities at Mahara Prison and the Watareka Open Prison Camp, moving inmates out of the Welikada female ward to Watareka, and transferring suspects to Mahara.
Ada Derana also carried the findings in its Sinhala service.
The findings land during a sustained period of strain across the prison system. Sri Lanka’s prisons were reported in July to be holding about 39,000 inmates against a far smaller design capacity, and a series of disturbances this month has put inmate and officer safety under scrutiny.
