The police force’s recent initiatives aimed at preventing inmates from engaging in illegal activities that take place outside the prison focus on monitoring the outsiders that interact with inmates as ‘visitors’.

This was revealed by Police Spokesperson, Deputy Inspector General of Police and attorney Nihal Thalduwa, who explained to The Daily Morning that attention has been paid to inmates that engage in criminal activities through those who visit them as visitors. He added that the law enforcement groups that have been deployed for this purpose will monitor who visits inmates, especially those apart from the inmates’ relatives, and whether they visit these inmates due to a genuine need or to aid criminal activities. As per Thalduwa, at present, police and intelligence officers have been deployed for this purpose.

Recently, the media quoted Inspector General of Police Deshabandu Thennakoon as saying that taking into account the criminal activities that take place or are initiated within prisons, the Police had initiated a mission to deploy undercover police officers to monitor and prevent illegal activities taking place within prisons. These reports further mentioned that organised criminals are being held in 15 prisons across the island and that 15 special police teams had been deployed as undercover officers to those prisons.