Criminals are simply not learning

Mar 21, 2010 Features / Columnists, My Column

---

By Adam Harris

Every day I read about crime I get to thinking that people refuse to think about prison. I had a lively discussion with a Guyanese who has been living in Norway for more than 35 years and who had decided after all that time to come back to Guyana, if only for one more time.
He was born here, in West Berbice, and he wanted his children to make contact with their Guyanese heritage. The man came with his wife, his son, daughter and grandchildren. To the latter, Guyana was a place they never knew existed.
They came and they saw. They were feasted on by mosquitoes that are nothing but a nuisance to those of us who live here but who can wreak real havoc on people who never experienced their bites. Fair-skinned people look like they are breaking out with eczema after a night with mosquitoes.
Children take it the worst and the people often wonder how we can live with these pests. We tell them that the pests are nationalized and that they hardly bother us. They bite us and leave nothing but an itch for a few minutes. Our skin, after a few moments, rarely reveals that we had been attacked. Sometimes I feel that the mosquitoes are fed up with Guyanese.
However the visitors came and were influenced by our culture and our cuisine. Pepper, the hot ones, was something they quickly learned to avoid. They also learned to avoid the roads at nights. And this had nothing to do with criminal elements.
Cows and goats and pigs on the roads scared the living daylights out of them. In their country they are not accustomed to roaming animals. They could shut their eyes and move from one location to another. In Guyana they had to keep their eyes peeled. This was what made them talk about their prison system
They said that people would go to jail for having domestic animals on the streets. I then asked what the jails were like. I had read about jails in the Scandinavian countries and I knew that being the human rights advocates these people are, the jails are ‘humane’.
One of them told me that Russians would enter Norway and commit a crime just to go to jail. There they are paid during their period of incarceration and when they come out, many go back. They have good beds, showers and accommodation that is not too different from a small hotel in Guyana.
I once lived at Bartica and often visited the Mazaruni Prisons. In those days the dormitory at the big jail was not too bad. However the cells were another story. They were not only dark and dismal; they were also oppressive.
Camp Street jail was another story. Not only is it overcrowded but there are also limited facilities. Cells rarely have sanitary facilities so the inmate has to resort to buckets. I have heard numerous complaints about the quality of meals served, although millions of dollars is voted each month to feed the prisoners.
Being in jail in Guyana is no fun. It cannot be, because so many different people with different attitudes are confined there. Violence is never far below the surface. I have heard tales of people being badly beaten because they refused to surrender the food that their relatives brought. Smokers also felt the heat when the stronger wanted the cigarette.
Just recently two men died violently while awaiting trial for killing other people. In that case I asked myself how people charged with killing someone could readily kill again.
I hear that prisoners work. If they are contracted out they are paid. The prisoner gets one-third; one-third goes directly to the prison and the other third is kept to be given to the prisoner on his release. However, none of the prisoners seem able to leave with enough money to see them through a month. This may be the reason some revert to crime as soon as they are released.
I happened to contact some men who have been in the Camp Street jail for as long as 17 years. Most are on Death Row. To them the outside world must be a mystery. Two of them should have been executed years ago for killing a girl in Berbice. The mastermind of that crime died in her jail. She has left her two accomplices behind.
There are others who because of a legal challenge are left to languish. People would say that they have life; that they should have been executed, but I know that the greatest punishment is confinement. It can be no fun waking up in a confined space every morning for 17 years. Some have been there for 20 years, which tells me that other killers came after them and were executed.
Those who engage in a life of crime must be unaware of what is going on. One young murder accused, when confronted with the charge could not get the words out of his mouth. His mother had to speak for him.
One man in jail went berserk when he heard that his brother was coming to join him. He knew that it would take all his savvy to keep himself safe. To concentrate on his brother too is another story.
I hear these things and I wonder at the nature of the man who would want to go there.

---

---