Another call for the re-thinking of court sentencing

Mar 09, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
Fifty(50) years of independence is a time to pause and reflect on who we are as Guyanese and the values and principles we embrace. The death of seventeen (17) prisoners in Georgetown prison is unprecedented in the English-speaking Caribbean; a tragedy that will leave an indelible mark on Guyana’s prison administration and will call into question the state’s administration of justice. While there may be some indifference to the deaths of these prisoners, because of the abhorrent nature of the crimes they were accused of committing, let us not forget that it is the state’s responsibility to protect the rights of the accused and dispense justice with the aim of comforting and bringing some degree of closure to the relatives, whose loved one’s human rights may have been denied or violated by the very accusers.
Since the Camp Street fire disaster, we are treated with several portraits and studies of a problem that was festering for decades. Writing visually about a tragedy has its advantages; however, our media houses tend to overreach with the gruesome images they post. At the time of our independence in 1966, we were a proud, caring people and portrayed our dead with reverence and respect. Over the last two (2) decades, we seem to be devoid of the empathy and consideration of what our children see regardless of their fears and nightmares. The ghoulish pictures are much too graphic. When you look at the you-tube videos of handlers tossing the bodies of the Bartica massacre victims like dead meat into an inflatable rubber boat, it seems as though we have lost some values along the way. So, as we celebrate our Golden Anniversary, let’s be cognizant of what the world think of us as a nation.
The Commission of Inquiry (COI) will do its work and as seen in past reports and recommendations, it will cite overcrowding as a common denominator to the problem. The challenge has always been what to do about overcrowding at Camp Street. It is my view and recommendation that the usefulness of the prison at Camp Street should be reviewed. The location of this prison was originally the outskirts of the ward of Stabroek, but the spatial and population growth of Greater Georgetown’s population increased exponentially over time and new areas circumscribed the prison.
Now it appears to be centrally located, but it was never planned to be this way. It is also true that it would serve for the holding of remand prisoners as their cases were put down for future trial. A comprehensive reform of this remand system should include the building of a new prison some miles away from central Georgetown’s schools and population. Here, accusers of petty crimes could be engaged in learning literacy and job skills, and have a better space and all-round environment. The daily blocking off of a busy Camp Street with armed warders shuttling prisoners to and from court hearings, is neither convenient nor safe.
Tragically, many prisoners are lost away in the ebb and flow of the present system for years without sentencing or release. The United Kingdom Prison Reform Team of 2001 had found that 80% of theses prisoners were serving time for minor offences and that this “perceived infringement of basic human rights” could be addressed by reducing overcrowding through “alternative sentencing for minor offences”. Consequently, there should be clear sentencing guidelines with inputs from probation officers, welfare officers, and the parole board. There should also be court for the smaller crimes in the nights and week-ends to reduce the back-log of cases.
Finally, I would ask how ready and responsive are we in the event of fire? A laundry list of grave concerns would include water management, non-working fire hydrants, breaching of building codes, constructing high-rise buildings, installing sprinkler systems, absence of fire walls, and irregular fire drills. Some lessons must be re-learned by every generation consistently and diligently; it is our only strategy to avert the consequences of such hazards. So, let’s work to make our golden anniversary of independence count for something because, in the words of the philosopher George Santayana, “people who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat them”.
Max Wallerson

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Another call for the re-thinking of court sentencing

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