We must close the Camp Street Jail

Nov 18, 2015 News

---

THE VOICE OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

There are very people in Guyana who would want Camp Street to continue as a prison. It occupies prime real estate; it is overcrowded, it is old and rotting.  The Camp Street Jail serves as a barrier between parts of Georgetown and does not add any aesthetic value to the City.
Well compacted into an area of just over 2.5 acres of land, this dilapidated penal facility is quite a waste of valuable space since these prisoners cannot even add any value to the nation but because of their physical circumstance are a burden to the nation.  By this, I mean they cannot even produce their own food.
Many cities have sensibly relocated their city centre prisons to remote locations to preserve their economic zones, but it seems like Guyana is lost in time on progressive actions such as this.  Credit to Vice President Khemraj Ramjattan, he has committed to the principle of moving the Camp Street prison, although he was quick to point out that “money nah deh”, but he did commit to exploring the options.
Knowing the Vice President personally, he is a man who will find a way to get this done, and it would be optimal if he sets as one of his deliverable to the people of Guyana the relocation of this Prison to Timehri before the end of his current term in 2020.
I am convinced that relocation of this prison will be cash neutral, especially recognizing that the land is a prime location for serious economic activities and can be sold at commercial value. We can use that land to build a high-rise group of condominiums for government workers.  Who would not want to live 20 minutes from their place of work?  Or it can be the location of a consolidation of a high-rise government office that can serve to centralize key functions in a one-stop location such as passport, birth certificate, pension, social assistance or even a combination of government offices and apartments for government workers with paid parking on the ground floor.
This single idea can create hundreds of new jobs which can kick start some level of economic activity that is desperately needed.
And what about the idea of asking the Private Sector to build the new prison at Timehri as a private-public arrangement where they will be paid a fee to take care of the incarcerated, using private sector prison guards?  This will serve as a model for future developmental projects.
If we look around the world, especially in the United States, relocating city centre prisons to remote locations is very common.   In the final analysis, the Camp Street prison is an eye sore and moving it can help bridge the gap between North and South Georgetown. In most societies intent on becoming more modern, they do not market their prison at their front door step, and we in Guyana should not have our tourists having the misfortune of having to pass on Camp Street to see that blight of a building.  When they pass that location, they should be told that here we have Guyana’s top architectural building that houses so and so.  So I fully support the mission of Vice President Ramjattan to bring greater reform to the prison system and hope he can be supported to relocate this Camp Street jail by all the stakeholders in Government.
I also want to commend him for trying to put measures in place to accelerate the dispensation of justice to those on remand (pre-trial detention), especially those who have been there for years without a trial.  He reportedly told the media on his visit to the Camp Street jail that he will use his office to ensure that the “remandee” secures a speedier trial.  If that fails, then we should recommend to President Granger that all those who have been on remand for more than five years should be pardoned, since justice delayed is justice denied.
A society must never be seen to be oblivious of the need for timely justice for the accused, especially when there is a chance that they may be innocent. Therefore the law needs to be changed to ensure that there are greater safeguards and restrictions as to how long someone can stay on remand and if the state fails to offer a speedy trial then that person is eligible to compensation for every day spent over a defined period (for example one year) if they were found to be innocent.  If such a system was in place, Mark Benschop would have been millions of dollars richer today.
Because the Guyana Prison System is not rehabilitative, but condemnatory, it is not a place for the innocent.  In Guyana, the overwhelming evidence is that the longer one stays in a place like Camp Street, the higher the chance that they will become a hardened criminal for the long term.  I was told that the only rule in Camp Street is the survival of the fittest, and that means you have to commit crimes on the inside to stay ahead.  What is the purpose of a Prison System if it makes you a worst criminal at departure than what you were when you first arrived?
So as the sun of democracy shines down on Georgetown, the future of the criminal justice system I am told is set to improve because of the tireless work of our Vice President who is in charge of Public Security, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan.  I wish him well on this journey since he is certainly serving in one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult of portfolios, and he has a Police Force and Prison Service which are both clearly ill-equipped to function in the modern world with modern tools, modern thinkers, and modern men.
***
Please share your feedback by emailing me at [email protected].

---

---