PRISONS OFFICIALS DECRY CONGESTION AS NUMBER OF INMATES SURPASSES 80,000

DAILY MONITOR

By March 30, 2026 Uganda’s prison space that should be accommodating at least 23,104 people is being occupied by 80,110 inmates. Officials from the Uganda Prisons Service (UPS) led by its deputy Commissioner General, Mr Samuel Akena, have asked Parliament to intervene.

While appearing before Parliament’s Defence and Internal Affairs Committee during the consideration of the 2026/27 Ministerial Policy Statement for Uganda Prisons Services on April 1, Mr Akena said the increased congestion has forced them to allocate a single prison space to four inmates to manage the situation.

“We have only a holding capacity of 23,104. In other words, the 56,916 really should not have been there in terms of space, but there is nothing we can do about it; they are there,” he said.

According to Mr Akena, the occupancy rate stands at 345 percent.

“In other words, for every one single space we should have, it is being occupied by four people.     That is almost 400 per cent and this is the biggest challenge we have and it is the biggest cost driver for our budget and all that we do because of this over congestion,” he said.

According to him, 42,340 inmates are convicts while 37,074 are on remand and judgement letters.

Mr Samuel Emigu, the Uganda Prisons Service Undersecretary expressed fears that this number is projected to increase to 111,822 prisoners by 2030 if nothing is done.

“We will be required to construct 50 prison wards, three local security prisons, and regional minimax prisons to address the issue of congestion. We have a shortfall of Shs75.1 billion,” he said, noting that the number of inmates is growing at 7 percent per annum, majorly caused by long periods of inmates on remand, leading to prison congestion, which necessitated the construction of new prison facilities.

The State Minister for Internal Affairs, Gen David Muhoozi said the Parole, remand reform, and construction of the proposed facilities are all needed because there’s no single intervention that will resolve the challenge of congestion.

“Because we need more than one intervention. Even on the number of paroles, if you start, who would be eligible to reduce the number significantly and afford you space? That is why you would also need to look at the remand side, when you look at the statistics, they are more or less equal and there are many people who spend a lot of time before they are committed to, even before trial.

So, I think all these measures should be exploited to see what can, and then, of course, space, space, space,” he said.

His senior, Gen Kahinda Otafiire, however, differed and urged the government to build more prisons, hire more judges, instead of banking on the solutions like plea bargain.

About the Parole, Mr Akena informed the Committee that: “The parole, we have moved very far and what is now remaining are the regulations, finalisation of the regulations. Otherwise, we believe that to some extent it will be a game changer for us.”

Gen Otafiire said the parole system won’t solve the congestion issue and asked the government to build more prisons and hire more judges.

“We have in prison people whose sentence is six months but they have been in prison for three years because they don’t have enough resources to listen to their cases,” he said.

He added, “Now, they can’t plea bargain because to plea bargain, will be for themselves, you have been in jail for three years, whereas you would have served six months. When you plea bargain, you are still convicted, it is on record, it is a catch-22, but if you don’t plea bargain, you don’t get out.”

Most of Uganda’s prisons, he said, were built by colonialists in 1922 and thus the population has tripled, noting that there is need for a heavy investment in the expansion of Prisons.