Prisons are now full of young people fighting thieves instead of being full of thieves themselves.
The revelation follows remarks by political commentator Comrade Robert Kabushenga via X(formerly Twitter), who questioned the direction of the country’s anti-corruption drive in light of current arrest patterns.
“We were told the prisons would be full of thieves stealing public funds. Instead, the prisons are full of young people fighting the thieves,”Kabushenga revealed.
He added that enforcement appears to have shifted away from corruption suspects toward citizens demanding accountability.
“We were told a war had been declared against corruption,” he said.
He added that instead the guns are now turned on the young people waging the war against corruption.
According to the Uganda Prisons Service Annual Statistical Report covering January to December 2025, the national inmate population stood at about 79,600 as of December 2025, despite an approved capacity of just over 22,000 inmates.
The report shows that between January and November 2025, young people aged 18 to 30 consistently accounted for more than half of the prison population. By November 2025, they represented close to 60 percent of all inmates nationwide.
Prison data further indicates that as of October 2025, more than 36,000 prisoners were on remand, meaning they had not been convicted. Officials attribute this to prolonged investigations, court backlogs, and limited access to bail, factors that disproportionately affect young suspects.
Congestion remained a major challenge throughout the year. In its September 2025 mid-year performance update, the Uganda Prisons Service warned that most facilities were operating at more than three times their intended capacity, placing pressure on health services, sanitation and rehabilitation programmes.
Health assessments conducted between July and November 2025 linked overcrowding to elevated risks of communicable diseases within detention facilities, a concern repeatedly flagged in internal prison reports.
The young people arrested during demonstrations and public order operations form a share of new remand admissions.
Although government maintains that measures such as plea bargaining, community service and decongestion exercises were intensified in the last quarter of 2025 the arrests have continued to outpace reforms.
Kabushenga maintains that Uganda’s prisons are increasingly holding young people challenging corruption, rather than those accused of stealing public funds.
