Over thousand prison escapees during five years

Over the past five years 1,152 prisoners had escaped from custody, a Prisons Department spokesman said.

The most number of prisoners had escaped in 2011 and that number was 286. Most of them had been in outdoor detention centres.

The number of prisoners escaped in 2015 was 154 while the Department re-captured 50 escapees during the same year.

The numbers of prisoners escaped in 2012, 2013 and 2014 were 273, 232 and 207 respectively.

Even though the statistics show a tendency of prisoners escaping from outdoor detention, the Department had earned Rs. 136 million from agriculture related activities in 2015.