as a separate enclosure. Besides the prisoners blocks, there are separate buildings such as the kitchen, stores, manufactory section, library, hospital ward, prayer hall (consists of temple, church and mosque) and outside the prison the barrack hall, staff mess, staff canteen and cattle sheds etc. are situated. The prison has a separate library building and a well stocked library which has around 10,000 books. Majority of the books, consisting of novels, history, short stories, life stories, etc, is in Malayalam language, as only a few prisoners understand English and other languages. Still there is a good collection of English, Hindi and Tamil novels too. The library is open from 9 am to 5 pm every day and also houses an open auditorium. Capacity Kerala prison rules prescribe that every prisoner in a ward shall be allowed not less than 3.72 m2 of floor area and 17 m3 of breathing space. Accordingly, every cell of A, B, C and D blocks can accommodate two prisoners (measurement of a single cell 4.1 m × 2.3 m × 3.10 m (height) i.e. 9.43 m2 floor area and 12.53 m3 breathing space) and in F & E blocks (dormitories) 100 prisoners each. This means that in total 420 male prisoners and 100 female prisoners can be housed at Central Prison, Viyyur. The average prison population is around 630 male prisoners and 30 female prisoners. This reveals that male blocks are consistently overcrowded at around 50% over the authorised capacity. References Prisons in Kerala Buildings and structures in Thrissur