Lockups, hotels and victims

Jun 03, 2009 Editorial

Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee, raised quite a few eyebrows when he recently responded to persistent questions about conditions in our lockups.

“A police station lockup is not a hotel!” he exclaimed exasperatedly. He revealed the grounds for his claim by elaborating, “If you don’t want to go in a police lockup, stay out of trouble or you will suffer the consequences.” He obviously believes that those who are placed in lockups are deserving of punishment.

The source of his exasperation was evidently those groups and individuals that have been highlighting the miserable conditions of police lockups in general and those at the Brickdam Station in particular, over the past decade.

“What about the victims?” the Minister questioned, “Human rights does not mean giving rights to one person involved in a matter to the disadvantage of the other…let it be a balanced view.”

Most members of the general public probably share the premises and conclusions of the Minister and this is why the issue has never received much traction in the general societal discourse. This is very unfortunate because the premises of the argument are flawed and inevitably, so are the conclusions.

Firstly, it should be noted that police station lockups are not jails. Individuals who have been detained on suspicion of committing crimes or misdemeanours are held in lockups until they are charged. Legally, the latter process ought to be consummated before seventy-two hours but in reality, there are numerous instances where individuals are held for much longer periods, especially when they have no lawyers.

Jails are for those individuals that have been charged and remanded or those that have been convicted and sentenced.

Thus when Minister Rohee asked critics of lockup conditions to place themselves in the shoes of the victims (and their families) of those in lockups who “have committed crimes of murder, shootings or placed a gun to someone’s head” he was slanting the argument quite a bit. Firstly, it should be noted that most individuals placed in the lockups are there for misdemeanours such as disturbing the peace or traffic violations etc.

More importantly, the individuals in lockups have not even been charged for crimes much less convicted and therefore must be considered and treated as if they are innocent. This is the sacrosanct principle on which our entire system of justice rests.

When Minister Rohee emphasises the punitive nature of the lockups (“you will suffer the consequences”) he is assuming that the individuals placed there are automatically guilty.

Such a position cannot stand. Until one is convicted, an individual is in full possession of all his/her civil and human rights excepting for the temporary restraint on movement over seventy-two hours. The assumption of “innocent until proven guilty” and its demands also extend to those that have been charged with crimes and remanded to our jails, the conditions of which are even more punitive than those of the lockups.

Even for those that will later be proven guilty there is the issue of the purpose of our detention facilities.

Back in 2007, in our editorial, “Prison Reform” we had pointed out, “Running a prison ought not to be just a matter of expediency or retribution: there are the issues of justice and rehabilitation in addition to punishment. In addition, the prison levels should be more properly defined. The level of security and treatment should be determined by the severity of felony: a minimum prison should be different from a medium prison and both from a maximum prison.

In Guyana, every prison is currently a maximum security prison, including the cells at police stations.”

Finally, we agree with Minister Rohee that the activists for “lockups’ reform” have not shown a comparable interest in the matter of victims’ rights and compensation. But this is a totally separate issue in which Mr Rohee can take action by introducing legislation that is long overdue.

Since he commendably believes that the matter deserves attention, he does not have to wait on outside agitation.

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Lockups, hotels and victims

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