According to State Minister of Defence Pramitha Bandara Tennakoon, from now on, all convicted minor offenders will serve their sentences at home under Police supervision. He said all those found guilty of civil offences will henceforth be placed under house arrest.
This indeed is a welcome step and in keeping with the practice followed in the developed countries where minor offenders rather than be incarcerated, are allowed close interaction with family members and loved ones. The State Minister did not say if those placed under house arrest would be permitted to eke out an existence by engaging in an outdoor occupation that would bring him/her and the family revenue. Of course, the term ‘house arrest ‘implies that they cannot step outside the confines of their home. If the offender happens to be the sole breadwinner of the family, some means should be found to permit them to earn some form of legitimate income short of violating the terms under which they are placed under house arrest.
No doubt, the latest move could prove the ideal solution for prison overcrowding. In fact, such a move was proposed by then State Minister of Prisons Reforms Lohan Ratwatte as an answer to prison congestion, but for some reason, the idea was shelved. In the meantime, present Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe is also planning to set up a prison or Rehabilitation Centre on Mantheevu Island (also known as Leprosy Island in the past) as one of the means of reducing prison congestion. The island was used by the Air Force during the Covid pandemic to set up a quarantine facility to treat its affected officers. Minister Rajapakshe also similarly said he would look into the possibility of confining first-time offenders and those convicted for minor offences together with aged prisoners to their homes as a means of tackling prison overcrowding. Prison overcrowding, though, can only get aggravated with the Yukthiya operation netting in a large number of suspects so far, most of whom, no doubt, would be convicted and sent to prison. Since a majority of those taken into custody are for drug offences, ideally, they should be sent for rehabilitation rather than consigned to prison, which then would only cause prison overcrowding to aggravate by leaps and bounds.
Be that as it may, a permanent solution should be found for prison congestion. According to media reports, overcrowding in prisons has reached breaking point, and in some prisons, including Welikada, prisoners are crammed into double their original capacity. What this means from the point of view of sanitation could only be imagined. Prisoners, too, are human and ought to be treated as such. Most of them have been thrown behind bars for spur–of–moment offences and other specific circumstances that were beyond their control. As already mentioned, in developed countries, prisoners are no longer confined to the four walls of their prison cells but are allowed to move in the open as far as possible and are made to interact with family members and loved ones. We, too, should think along those lines and accord more humane treatment to prison inmates. For, as already mentioned, some of them may not, in reality, be responsible for the actions that placed them behind bars and may regret their offences while living in confinement.
However, the inhuman conditions they are forced to live in may make even such types bitter and harden them more. Hence, if the whole exercise of imprisonment is to make good men out of offenders, the prison conditions may hardly allow for this. Therefore, there is a need for a change in the whole attitude towards prisoners and, more importantly, an improvement in the conditions of prisons. In fact, it is the overcrowding in prisons that, in the past, led to prison riots.
Meanwhile, steps should also be taken to cleanse our prisons not only from their squalor but also from sleaze and nefarious activity. Today, our prisons are well-known for their subterranean life, where inmates engage in all sorts of depredations and even criminal activities, often with the support and connivance of corrupt prison officials. The frequent detections of mobile phones in the possession of inmates, no doubt, tell a tale. For most prisoners, prisons represent a home away from home. Some have easy access to their criminal accomplices on the out and carry out their criminal activities while placed behind bars, such as running drug rackets and even planned assassinations. High Court Judge Sarath Ambepitiya was killed as a result of a conspiracy hatched behind the walls of the Welikada prison. It was recently reported in the media how a well-known drug lord operating from abroad had liaised with an accomplice at the Welikada prison.
This certainly is not an isolated incident and, needless to say, could not have come about without the ready support of a high-ranking prison officer or officers. Hence, it could be seen that our prisons today have turned into centres where criminality thrives. Central to all ills affecting our prisons certainly stems from prison overcrowding and their parlous conditions. Hence, all steps taken to reduce overcrowding and make our prisons habitable should be welcomed.
