interview mr weerasinghe-2

8/6/2019 Interview Mr Weerasinghe-2

1/12

Ex. Prisons Commissioners View

An Interview of Ex Prison Commissioner (welfare)

By Justice Maker Harshi C. Perera (AAL)

1. Please introduce yourself, briefly.I am Lionel Weerasinghe, Correctional Professional

Commissioner. I retired after serving 34 years in PrisonDepartment. My retiring position was Commissioner of Prisons(Welfare). I am a University Graduate and did my Post Graduate

studies at Sri Jayawardenapura University, in Criminology andCriminal Justice.

2. What is your opinion about Womens Wards in prisons andWomens Detention Centers?

Prison Department maintains 10 Female Detention Units allover the island. Welikada Female Ward is the biggest wheremore than 500 females both convicted and suspected aredetained, except the Badulla female section, which is locatedinside the male prison of Badulla. All other female wards aremaintained as a wing of the male prison but stationed separatelyoutside the male prison units.

When comparing with the population of prisoners in Sri

Lanka, only 3% are females. Because of this, a very poor attention and priority is shown towards female detainees. Anyone can easily criticize it as a forgotten group of human being.


2/12

And pathetically, this minority group is under malesdomination. The male dominant prison system does not givemuch room for the feminine behaviors and needs.

But, I should mention here that the female inmates of theWelikada prison enjoy more opportunities and facilities than theinmates in other female detention centers.

3. Can you point some difficulties the women detainees face?

Overcrowding, severely affect the female detainees in prisons.The space allocated for the females in Badulla, Galle andTangalle prisons is not enough and very limited. They have tospend whole day and night in the limited space with inadequatefacilities.

Some mothers spend their prison life with their infant or childwho is under five years of age. I think it is a very difficult task for both the inmates and the officials to accommodate them in alimited, closed environment with other adult inmates.

Maintaining family relationship and communications with thechildren is another problem for female inmates.

In most of the female units, the inmates are idling. They arenot engaged in activities of skill development or behavioral

changes. In every female ward, I believe that there is a criticalneed for legal assistance for under trial inmates who are detainedinside, and social supporter measures for the relatives of thedetainees who live out side helplessly in their homes.


3/12

E ffective categorizing system has not been enforced inside thefemale sections. Inmates detained for minor offences are left tomingle with the criminal offenders, drug addicts and prostitutes.

This is an inter defective and very harmful process which existsin both male and female prison institutions.

4. There have been several irregularities and ongoing illegalactivities inside the prison. Are you familiar with theseirregularities and illegal activities? How prevalent do you think these irregularities and illegal activities are?

Prison is a social creation and it gives the real reflection of thesociety. You can sight the social behaviors in the prison mirror.

In our country the authority of law has lost its supremacy.Social order has collapsed. E verywhere we experience bribery,corruption, wastage of resources and energy. All socialinstitutions violate their norms and ethics but enjoydiscriminating.

In such a social environment, you have to establish andmaintain more prison to incarcerate certain amount of people.

And these prisons are governed by the officials who live andcome from the same society, influenced by the prevailing trends

of the society.With such a social environment can you expect a well

disciplined humanity, and safe secured prison system? Youcant.


4/12

As I have heard and learned, prisons are built by stones of laws. But the present situation is that these stones are graduallydismounted and hollowed. We have seen and heard about the

worst situations of Sri Lankan prisons through the mass media. Not only the mass media, but also the minister of prison reformsopenly thrashed out recently the critical conditions of the

prisons.

As a civilized society, we send criminals to prisons to protectthe society from their criminal activities. In the meantime, we

want to correct these wrong doers and reintegrate to the society.But the existing mechanism inside the prisons is not efficient for the said purpose. Then what might happen is not the good or the

better, but not only the bad, the worst.

5. Do you think that violation of human rights occur inside the prisons? If so, what is your opinion on how prevalent

these violations are?

Answer for the first part of the question, is yes.

I consider that the daily functions, based on the prisonordinance, are the biggest violations of human rights of the

prisoners.

Sri Lankan prison system is based on the prison ordinanceenacted in the year of 1884 by the British rulers, which wasintroduced in this country, before the declaration of humanrights universally. This ancient ordinance consists and coversonly the area of basic human needs of the detainees. (i.e.


5/12

providing shelter, food, water, cloth, sanitary conditions, healthcare etc.)

In addition to that the constitutional rights, specially thefundamental rights protected by the Sri Lanka Constitution, isentitle also to prisoners without any exception.

But the actual and practical situation is entirely different.

Most of the humanitarian accesses of the prison ordinance arenot effectively enforced by the prison authorities. And it is not

so easy that the protection of constitutional fundamental right toreach a prisoner who is in a prison.

So I should mention that everyday the violations occur everywhere and degrading treatments exist in every corner. Assaultand intimidation is the governing instrument in Sri Lankan

prison. No remedial measures are being stabilized.

6. Is there or was there been any political influence inadministrating your duties?

Prison is not an important institution for politicians. Becauseof that unimportant politicians do not interfere in the day to day

activities of the prisons.But the bad effects of the 1978 constitution affected the

administration setup of the prison department in similar manner,


6/12

as to how far the other departments and state institutions wereaffected.

Through the new practices, like appointing of heads of departments is influenced by politics and the quality of thecorrectional professionalism is minimized. Political interferencein transfers or promotions of officials is very common.

In same way there is interference in new recruitments too.

7. There are lots of outside parties such as NGOs etc. thatwork with prisons. By exposing the internal working system of

prisons to the International community, do you feel that theymight be able to improve their economic positions and thusincrease their ability to help in reforming the current prisonsystem?

Here, I would like to mention that there are not very many NGOs but only a few works with prisons in Sri Lanka.

The reason why I would like to comment on this is that the SriLankan prison setup never prefers outsiders or organizations

interfering in it, especially with regard to Human Rightsobjectives.


7/12

In prison attitudes, there are two categories of behaviors, thehardcore party believes that the outside interference is harmfulor troublesome and they always discourage it.

The soft type party express the view that organizations whichcould easily controllable may be allowed to work only onselected fields like offering donations, instruments, materials,consumer commodities etc.

Meanwhile with the blessing of Sri Lanka Government, a fewINGOs and NGOs are permitted to enter in assisting the processof developing prisons and its systems.

Any how, I should mention here, that the system of the SriLankan prisons is not updated by the state for a long time.Because of this, prisons cannot stand the developments withoutthe engagement of outside organizations.

If we go through the prison history, we can notice that everymajor structural change in prison system or each and every newaddiction have occurred with the external interference.

For example, in 1976, E x Prison Officers Training Centre wasestablished by UNDP fund. Separation and treatment of drugaddict prisoners program was started with the interference of

WHO. Prison Welfare Service was reopened by the initiation of Prisoners Welfare Association.

Therefore, I believe that the prison department needs self renovation or reformation. The relevancy of outside


8/12

organizations which work in genuine intention can contribute alot for the reformation of current prison system.

8. Today, prison reforms have become a popular topic of conversation. What thoughts do you have on prison reforms?How would you go along with reformation of prisons?

At first I should say not only the prison but the whole societyneed to be reformed and restructured.

Secondly, Sri Lankan Criminal Justice System needs to bereformed. Prison is only one part of the system and withoutredesigning the other part; it will not be able to produce theresults we expect.

Acute overcrowding is the main cause for all problems.Because of the failure of the criminal justice system, a hugeamount of unnecessary crowd flow into prisons.

From 1950 we face delays in the judicial service. E ven after the very long 60 years of independency, we could not been ableto stop or at less reduce the large percentage of count proceeds.

More than 75% of prison population consist pre trial detainees.Convict rate of the major offences is only 4%. The generalconviction rate is 25%; out of every 4 remanded prisoners,convict is only one. Majority of court conviction is on excise or narcotic drug offence. It counts up to 60%.


9/12

The convicted majority belongs to short term imprisonments,who are sentenced to less than 3 months or so. 50% of theimprisoned victims are those who couldnt pay the fine.

The one, who is unable to pay the fine at the court house, will be sentenced to serve a term in prison.

The bail procedure of the judicial system does not rend anyassistance to reduce the overcrowding in prisons. Most of the

pretrial detainees are remanded by order of Magistrate Courtsand they are considered as the bail able persons in the bail act.

I suggest that the following recommendations could beimplemented when doing prison reforms:-

*Implement the bail act to full fill its basic principles.

*Implement the prison ordinance.

*Train the prison official to adjust to the reformed situations.*Reserve the post of Commissioner General of Prison only

for the deserving Correctional Professionals.

9. The prison systems in developed countries utilize a varietyof approaches to prison administration, which Sri Lanka doesnot employ. Do you believe that we should employ their methods in our prisons? If so, what methods?


10/12


11/12

Reduce the residential congestions; stabilize the pre release preparations and voluntary after care scheme.

10. What can we do personally and officially to make the prisons a better place and to improve the status of women pre-trial detainees?

For the free trial women detainees:-

1. First we should unearth the real situation of pre trial woman prisoners; there cause of incarceration, the main problems, thegrievances and difficulties they face.

2. When comparing with the population of male prisoners, asthe pre trial women prisoners are very small in number, it could

be done because it necessitates very low attention.

3. Pre trial woman inmates are located in number of prisonsand detention centers all over the island. Only in Welikadafemale prison, the number amount to more than 400 but in other

places it ranks in between 20 to 50.

In some prison and centers, the space for this minor group isvery limited and within this limitation the basic needs of them

can not be full filled.3. Prisons are dominated by males. The administration setup

is designed accordingly. Hence, there prevail unseeninconveniences which are very small and forgotten lot,


12/12

especially in Anuradhapura, Negombo, Kandy, Welikada,Kuruvita and Kalutara prisons. The space in Galle, Tangalle andBadulla prisons is not enough.

Vagrancy Ordinance, implementing this ordinance crests mostof congestion problems.

The prison officials who work there introduce some changes.Mr. V.N Pilla and Mr. J.P.Delgoda former commissioners, whohad the intervention exposure, introduced the reformation aspectof departments.

From gained experience and knowledge Mr. Delgodaintroduced the reform activities and he was been able to interpret

prison ordinance for this purpose.

I believe that light fall on with his forgive exposure.

He had the strength of the UNO standard rules for treatmentof prisoners and International guide lines for prisonadministration.

We accepted the guidelines of UNO in 1970, but now we arein 2010 and still we are not following these guidelines. As

prison officials we have not come to an agreement in followingthis guide lines, because there is no encouragement to fallowthese guidelines.

By Harshi C. Perera (AAL)

interview mr weerasinghe-2

Documents