Liberia: Sawabenu Links Kakata Central Prison Jailbreak to Overcrowding of Prison, Calls for Rule of Law

Monrovia – 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.

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By J.H. Webster Clayeh –websterclayeh@frontpageafricaonline.com

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More than 100 inmates reportedly escaped from the Kakata Central Prison on Sunday evening, triggering a massive manhunt across Kakata and surrounding communities, as the Ministry of Justice confirmed a jailbreak and announced an ongoing search-and-recapture operation.

In a statement issued Sunday, September 20, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that a number of inmates had escaped from the facility, while noting that the Bureau of Corrections and Rehabilitation was still verifying prison records to establish the exact number and identities of those involved.

The ministry said the Joint Security of Liberia had been alerted and was actively pursuing the escapees.

Sources within the prison, speaking to FrontPage Africa on condition of anonymity, said the escapees were predominantly inmates housed in Block “A,” which comprises three cells.

According to the sources, the inmates broke through sections of the prison walls before scaling the facility’s high barbed-wire perimeter fence and fleeing into nearby communities.

Sawabenu says the incident reflects systemic failures in Liberia’s justice system that continues to compromise public safety and human rights standards across the country.

Base on a firsthand engagement with the facility and its detainees. The legal group says in June 2026, it 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.

The group, according to Cllr. Sarnyenneh M. Dickson, Acting Executive Director said it 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, Acting Executive Director of Sawabenu said.

“The increased pretrial detention numbers our legal team documented during these deployments are among the very drivers that precipitated Sunday’s breach,” the legal group said.

Cllr. Dickson furthering his group 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, he stressed, 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,” Cllr. Dickson said in a statement.

He added that 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,” he said.

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,” he said.

According to the group, on the day of the jailbreak, Kakata Central Prison reportedly held 217 inmates in a facility designed for a maximum capacity of 60 persons.

The group stressed: “Operating at over 360 percent of capacity, more than 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,” cllr. Dickson said.

He added: “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.”

The legal group said the 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,” he said.

According to reports, 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 receive.

Sawabenu also called for a full, transparent and impartial investigation into the Kakata Central Prison security breach, with findings made public and negligent officials held accountable.

The group furthered stressed the need for 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 and a full adherence to human rights standards by security forces pursuing the escapees, strictly prohibiting excessive or unreasonable force, arbitrary searches and collective punishment.