PRESS STATEMENT

STATEMENT BY SAWABENU ON THE KAKATA CENTRAL PRISON JAILBREAK: A CALL FOR RULE OF LAW, SYSTEMIC REFORMS, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND PUBLIC COOPERATION

Monrovia, Liberia, 25 September 2026 - Sawabenu, a rule-of-law civil society organization, is raising grave concern over the mass jailbreak at the Kakata Central Prison in Margibi County on Sunday, 20 September 2026. The incident reflects systemic failures in Liberia’s justice system that continue to compromise public safety and human rights standards across the country. 

Sawabenu speaks on the recent jailbreak from direct, firsthand engagement with the facility and its detainees. In June 2026, Sawabenu deployed volunteer lawyers across Montserrado and Margibi

Counties under its Justice on Wheels Mobile Legal Clinic. Working in close collaboration with the Public Defender, the City Solicitor, and the Kakata City Court, we facilitated a fast-track trial at the Kakata

Central Prison that successfully secured the release of 21 pre-trial detainees, many of whom had been held for months on minor offenses without trial. A similar intervention was carried out in the final quarter of

2025 and in other counties, all with the support of SIDA. The increased pretrial detention numbers our legal team documented during these deployments are among the very drivers that precipitated Sunday’s

breach.

Furthering our advocacy, Sawabenu convened the National Dialogue on Pretrial Justice Reform on August 27, 2026, just three weeks prior to the jailbreak. Hosted at the Ministry of Justice under the theme

“Justice for All, Delays for None,” the dialogue assembled key justice sector stakeholders, international organizations, and civil society actors. The discussion highlighted the ever-increasing numbers of prolonged pre-trial detainees and critically assessed the national prison sector’s infrastructure and resource deficits. These candid exchanges produced nineteen actionable recommendations designed to resolve the precise systemic failures behind the Kakata prison breach. Notably, several key measures Sawabenu calls for in this statement reflect recommendations previously raised by the very institutions responsible for their implementation. 

Although the Government of Liberia reports that Joint Security forces are actively pursuing the escapees, the jailbreak incident underscores deep-seated operational breakdowns within the country’s correctional and judicial institutions.

To mitigate further risk and ensure public safety, Sawabenu joins the call for citizens to report information about escapees directly to law enforcement, and reminds the public that harboring any escapee constitutes hindering law enforcement and a violation of Liberian law.

At the core of this security failure is a severe crisis of prison overcrowding and prolonged pretrial detention, which accounts for more than 60% of the prison population nationally. On the day of the

jailbreak, Kakata Central Prison reportedly held 217 inmates in a facility designed for a maximum capacity of 60 persons, operating at over 360 percent of capacity. Of these, 158 inmates, more than 72%, were pretrial detainees who have not been convicted of any crime. Persistent judicial delays, excessive court backlogs, lack of legal defense, and the denial of bail leave detainees trapped in severe overcrowding, in violation of basic human rights standards and of Liberian law.

This prison break marks the second mass escape from the Kakata Central Prison in just twenty-four months, following a similar breach in September 2024. The event reflects a broader pattern of chronic

failures across Liberia’s correctional facilities, including previous mass escapes at the National Palace of Correction (2012), Monrovia Central Prison (2013), Voinjama Central Prison (2016) and Grand Cape

Mount Prison (2018), among others. These recurring incidents point to systemic negligence, critical staffing shortages and chronically underfunded infrastructure.

Moreover, the security failure at the Kakata Central Prison is not an isolated incident. It is the direct consequence of systemic overcrowding, prolonged pretrial detention and sustained under-resourcing of

the correctional sector. Liberia’s 14 to 16 correctional facilities have a direct operating cost of $810,001 in the current national budget. The Police Training Academy alone receives 20% more direct budgetary

support than the entire corrections sector. Basic sustenance and hygiene consume 73% of what corrections receives. No institution can be held responsible for outcomes it has not been resourced to deliver. The failure is one of allocation, delayed or uninitiated prosecutions, and inefficient judicial case management, a systemic breakdown that rests with the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. Though the Judiciary is not a party to the cases before it, docket management is its own function, not that of the litigants. Cases eligible for dismissal under Section 18.2 of the Criminal Procedure Law remain on the docket because no judicial actor has moved them. Section 13.5, which permits magistrates to release detainees under defined circumstances, is applied inconsistently or not at all. These are not resource constraints, but matters of judicial practice within the Judiciary’s power to correct. Although past action demonstrates its capability to reform, meaningful change requires a sustained and deliberate commitment.

Sawabenu Calls For:

• A full, transparent and impartial investigation into the Kakata Central Prison security breach, with findings made public and negligent officials held accountable.

• An urgent judicial review of all pretrial detentions nationally, prioritizing the granting of bail to non-violent offenders and the expediting of stalled cases, to reduce prison populations before the next breach.

• Full adherence to human rights standards by security forces pursuing the escapees, strictly prohibiting excessive or unreasonable force, arbitrary searches and collective punishment.

• Expansion of judicial monitoring beyond human resource compliance to include active auditing of court dockets, addressing judicial inaction on cases eligible for dismissal under Section 18.2 and the objective application by magistrates of Section 13.5 of the Criminal Procedure Law.

• Immediate reversal of the decline in fast-track judicial proceedings and expansion of jail delivery programmes across all counties to expedite case reviews and the release of unlawfully detained individuals.

• Immediate scale-up of the Public Defense Program to ensure equal representation for indigent defendants, prioritizing magisterial courts, where the widespread absence of public defenders alongside state prosecutors severely undermines fair trial guarantees and drives pretrial detention numbers.

• Increased budgetary support to the correctional sector by the Government through the National Legislature, to permanently resolve overcrowding.

In closing, Sawabenu supports reform from within. Having convened both sub-national and national engagements, we actively serve on the Technical Working Group consolidating the 19 dialogue recommendations into an actionable framework, while participating in monthly Ministry of Justice human rights in prison coordination meetings. 

We offer our proven case review methodology and volunteer lawyer network to all partners. The success of our Justice on Wheels initiative, alongside similar interventions by peer organizations, clearly demonstrates that securing the direct release of pretrial detainees is both achievable at minimal cost. The mechanisms and laws exist; decisive action is now required. Sawabenu calls on all stakeholders to deepen partnership and support in advancing justice, human rights, and the rule of law.

Signed: Cllr. Sarnyenneh M. Dickson

 Acting Executive Director Sawabenu