Stand Up for Jamaica Executive Director Carla Gullotta is backing calls for the construction of a new prison but is maintaining that greater emphasis must be placed on rehabilitation to ensure
that all the necessary systems and resources are in place to facilitate the reform of all prisoners.
A new prison is needed but it depends on the type of new prison we are planning for.
If people are planning for a maximum security prison that can be an option, but the main thing that we should consider is that a new prison should be built on standards which allow access to rehabilitation for all otherwise it is a missing goal.
A new prison is needed but it should not be a prison that is considered a fortress where you lock them away without access to any programme, it should be a place where all the principles and objectives of rehabilitation are fully supported by Government, its agencies and ministries as well as civil society and private sector.
Unity is needed in the promotion of second chances for inmates as part of the fight against crime and violence which is plaguing our society.
The country's two main prisons, Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre and St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre which were originally built as forts for slaves are not only battling severe infrastructural issues but over overcrowding as well.
Tower Street can hold around 800 inmates but they have over 1700 and more. St Catherine
should only be housing 700 inmates but it is housing more than a 1000. The infrastructure is
very poor and is not enough to accommodate all the prisoners.
This clashes with the idea of rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation is a key thing on a target which is in conflict with the law and one of the most important ways to fight against crime.
Among the general population out of every three prisoners living in the institution, one is coming back while among those who are engaged in rehabilitation activities, it is very seldom that one is coming back, over the years we have seen just a very few.
Rehabilitation is the key solution to sending back better people to society, but the degrading infrastructure at the prison facilities and the lack of space is not conducive towards that effort.
At Tower Street, the school can only accommodate a maximum of 200 people from a population of 1700.
When we at SUFJ and the Department of Correctional Services propose to inmates to go to
school, everybody wants to go but we cannot take them in because the space is not enough.
Also for other projects like professional skills, laboratories etc., even there the spaces are, 20, 40, and 50, in that population, which sends back to their cells those who are trying to make a difference in their lives.
Since the earthquake in October, the situation has worsened because some of the blocks have been inspected and they are not fit for inmates. So inmates are five in a cell which is planned for two.
Two on a sponge, two on a hammock and one may the grill in the night and they have shifts.
They are locked in between 3 pm to 9:30 in the morning. There is no access to bathrooms,
latrines anything so the inmates have to have their own little bucket in the cell where they urinate and defecate in front of everybody. It is really a health hazard and a humiliation.
The fact that people are in conflict with the law does not raise any sympathy among Government and civil society and the priority is shifted to the need for better and more health and educational facilities.
So every time we mention the fact that a new prison is needed other items are raised as relevant for Jamaican society but I think this is a blind corner because it is going to produce more violence, it is going to produce more recidivism due to the fact that those who are willing to make changes and go back to society with a diploma, with the possibility to get a job and to go back to their community as better people cannot do it because they are no instrument for them to do so.
DCS has made efforts to improve projects but it has a small budget which reflects the philosophy of the county which is still proposing “lock dem up and throw away the key” without understanding that there are more than 3,500 people who have done something wrong and are going back to society and might risk doing something wrong again because nobody is giving them a chance.
Also, greater use could be made of the low-risk facilities using their potential to produce goods to feed the institution's population, expanding some entrepreneurship initiatives and generating income to be invested in rewarding projects and welfare.
As we appeal to the Government to reconsider its decision to place the construction of a new prison on the back burner, we also want to urge the Government to rethink its policy of not employing persons who have been convicted and imprisoned.
If they achieve six subjects, a Heart/ NSTA diploma, and a professional skill, they undoubtedly need support in finding jobs unless we want to send them back to prison.
Rehabilitation without reintegration cannot work.
Maria Carla Gullotta
Comments