Parliamentary committee begins on-site prison inspections over overcrowding, starting with Welikada and Colombo Remand

Members of Parliament’s Sectoral Oversight Committee on Governance, Justice and Civil Protection have begun inspecting prisons in person as part of their search for solutions to overcrowding, moving the committee’s months-long inquiry out of the committee room and into the facilities themselves.

What was inspected

Committee members visited the Colombo Remand Prison, the New Magazine Prison, Welikada Prison and the Prison Hospital on Friday, NewsFirst reported.

The review covered kitchen operations, healthcare facilities, the condition of prison buildings — including structures deemed unsafe — and the drainage systems used for wastewater disposal. The committee is also examining the facilities available to prison officers and the difficulties they face in carrying out their duties.

The inquiry so far

The inspections follow a series of committee discussions with stakeholders. Daily Mirror reported on 3 November that at a sitting on 23 October, chaired by MP Dr. Najith Indika, the committee took up amendments to the Prisons Ordinance, the referral of people with drug addiction to rehabilitation rather than prison, and measures to speed up Government Analyst’s reports.

Proposals canvassed at that sitting included the establishment of open prisons and work camps, the conditional release of inmates, and directing prisoners with good conduct towards employment opportunities.

Measures to clear the backlog at the Government Analyst’s Department were also reviewed, among them increasing staff capacity, improving transport and expanding overtime services. The delay in forensic reports is a recognised driver of remand populations, because cases cannot proceed to trial without them.

The committee further examined the legal and administrative reforms needed to address overcrowding, with particular attention to coordination between the Ministry of Justice and National Integration and the Department of Prisons.

Context

Neither filing gives a current prison population figure or a designed capacity, so the scale of the overcrowding the committee is responding to is not quantified in either report.