Latest update December 23rd, 2024 3:40 AM
Overcrowding, trial delays contributed to prison riot
Subsequent to rioting inmates setting fire to the eastern section of the Camp Street, Georgetown Prison Sunday, there is a sense of unease outside the prison walls. The result is that police ranks around the prisons have been increased.
Sources disclosed that one of the main contributory factors for the riot was the hostile actions of Senior Superintendent Gladwin Samuels, who recently was chosen to head the Georgetown Prisons. Inmates claim that they were being treated inhumanely, with disdain and were brutalized.
Police presence at the Georgetown Prison
Late Sunday night members of the Joint Services were in a standoff with inmates at the Camp Street prison who are demanding the removal of the warden who was recently placed in charge of the facility.
The inmates reacted angrily and began banging the walls and screaming, “Every day is de same stinking food. De wardens dem locking down people in here and ain’t even want we family visit we fuh give we food.”
Their protest actions saw mostly inmates of various dormitories of the facility chanting slogans through barriers overlooking the prison’s perimeter walls, calling for Samuel’s removal.
In 2008, two prison superintendents, Kurt Corbin and Gladwin Samuels, were accused of killing Edwin Niles. The two were granted $500,000 bail by the Magistrate and were eventually discharged.
Niles, who was incarcerated on a marijuana possession charge, was admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) on July 3, 2008 with a broken arm and second and third degree burns to his shoulders, back and buttocks. He succumbed on July 11.
An autopsy revealed that he died from a clot in the lungs due to the burns about the back. It is alleged that Niles was beaten and scalded with hot water while being interrogated at the Georgetown Prison in connection with ammunition on his person.
Reports reveal that the fire at the prisons, Sunday evening, began in a dormitory which houses convicted prisoners. Prisoners used lighters to set alight a mattress. At that time they were seen dumping and throwing objects through the barriers.
The Fire Service was called in to hose down that section of the building. This quelled the flames since fire fighters were not allowed entry into the prison block or dormitory.
Police officers, clothed with riot gear were seen entering the prison in the early stage of the showdown. Efforts to make contact yesterday with the prison officials at the headquarters proved futile and no information was forthcoming. Not even a press release was issued to highlight the steps the authorities took to control a prison bursting at its seams.
Authorities have since beefed up security in and around the penitentiary as investigations commenced into the prisoners’ behaviour. It is not the first time prisoners at the overcrowded Camp Street facility have set their mattresses on fire to call attention to administrative and other issues at the jail.
The prisoners say that over 300 of them are awaiting trial, adding that they are crammed into an overcrowded facility without proper food.
The inmates made it clear that they want a return of former Director of Prisons Dale Erskine who they said looked into their concerns whenever these were raised.
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