A long-awaited Brickdam rehabilitation

Aug 11, 2009 Editorial

Four years ago, a British jurist came to Guyana and announced that the Brickdam lockups should be locked up. At the time he was responding to a question from a reporter who had long been seeking information on the reason why any lockups in the country could be allowed to exist under such conditions.
At the time the British jurist had said that there was inadequate ventilation, poor sanitation and near inhuman conditions. The authorities heeded the British jurist and undertook comprehensive rehabilitation.
But they had to be prompted by the death of an inmate. The man, a fisherman, is still believed to have been beaten and placed in the lockups.
The lockups were painted, ablution areas rehabilitated and generally the place became habitable for brief periods. But something had to go horribly wrong because before long the lockups became a breeding den for every conceivable disease. It was the most stink place in the country and held terror for even people who had to walk past. Complaints about the location almost fell on deaf ears; Home Affairs Minister justified the existence of the Brickdam lock ups by telling all who would ask that the lockups were not intended to be five-star hotels.
However, over the weekend, the police hurriedly and quietly emptied the Brickdam lockups and have begun a process of rehabilitation. One view is that the incarceration of some high profile Guyanese for protesting outside the Office of the Police Commissioner.
These men made the public aware of the conditions, right down to the utensils used by the men for feeding purposes. They took their message to international bodies and one is certain that some one of these bodies must have approached the government to justify the existence of the facility.
Word is that at the time of the closure there were about 200 men in the lock ups. This would have made the place the most overcrowded location in Guyana. The area was intended for no more than forty people. It is this rampant overcrowding that would have been responsible for the various ills. It has not escaped notice that most of the lock ups in an around the city are smelly places and this had to do with the people who are incarcerated there and the absence of a cleaning staff.
In some cases the authorities use the very prisoners to clean out the lock ups but prisoners are not the best workers. The Brickdam lock ups was one place that was scarcely cleaned and the ranks there could not take the time. The result was the smelly location.
We now come to the movement of the prisoners. The authorities decided that they would use the out of town locations—Diamond/Grove and the Providence Police Stations. These were locations built for no more than a handful of prisoners; the police, on the instruction of the Home Affairs Minister have made these overcrowded facilities.
One must now wonder whether they have taken steps to prevent breakouts; whether the police and the Home Affairs Ministry have decided to put in place people who would clean the cells and lockups daily.
If there are such people, where would the prisoners be housed while the cleanup is in progress? Perhaps the nation would be exposed to sights of prisoners rounded up in the yard under the guns of policemen. But then again, this is unlikely to happen so we can be certain that within days there would be other smelly lockups in the outskirts of the city. But why should so many people be taken into police custody? There is nothing better than a man’s freedom but it has not escaped notice that people are detained on the merest of suspicions. It has also not escaped notice that many of those detained are very young boys, some no more that their early teens.
This is another story and it smacks at an education system that seems to be failing so many young people.
But the issue now is about the condition of the Brickdam lockups which was so overcrowded that to describe it as such would have been an understatement. It is being cleaned up but we are certain that within days of its rehabilitation it will be back to its smelly nature, overcrowded as usual and of course, will remain so until some other high profile Guyanese seek the ears of the international community.

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A long-awaited Brickdam rehabilitation

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