Prison inmates to get telephone facilities

30 September 2014 07:44 am

The Prison Department said today steps were being taken to provide telephone facilities for the prison inmates in collaboration with Sri Lanka Telecom.

Prisons media spokesman T.N. Upuldeniya said a specially programmed phone-box would be installed so that the inmates in remand prison could make two calls of five munities each per month.

“This will be installed in Welikada remand prison as the first step. Inmates in remand prison can contact their family members and the lawyer using this phone. They need to provide five numbers first including four numbers of family members. And those numbers will be studied by the prison intelligent unit before approving the numbers. The numbers will be displayed when the inmate put his finger print on the specially programmed phone where he can select one number at a time. 
The call duration will be limited to five minutes,” he said.

Mr. Upuldeniya said inmate’s family members need to reload the particular account which is assigned for the inmates before they make any call.

He said it is being studied whether it was possible to provide the facility for the inmates who were serving death sentence.