Over 50 percent of prisoners are drug offenders

According to the reports of the Prisons Department, about 52 percent of the prisoners who are currently in prison are those who have been imprisoned for drug offences.

As of yesterday (26), the number of inmates in prisons was 30,139, and more than 15,600 of them were imprisoned for drug offences.

Among these, 38 prisoners are on death row.

The number of female inmates in prisons is 1,235 and of these, 730 are those who are in prison for drug offences.

As of December 31, 2022, the number of prison inmates was 26,176. Around 53 percent of them or 13,794 inmates were jailed for drug offences.

The prison system in Sri Lanka has capacity to hold only 11,291 prisoners.

There is high congestion in prisons at the moment as there are prisoners exceeding the capacity of the prisons system.

According to prison records, the percentage of inmates who have exceeded prison capacity as of December 31, 2022 is 232 percent.

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