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THE PRISON FIRE
The public should not be surprised. The inferno that engulfed the wooden structures at the Camp Street Prison on Sunday was bound to happen for several reasons. There has been chronic over-crowding at the prison, and despite several recommendations to ease it, the government has obviously been finding it difficult to do so.
For starters, there is the problem of both financial and human resources. The prison system is short of wardens and the government simply does not have the money to pursue full scale prison rehabilitation.
Following the last riot at the Camp Street prison, the government established a Commission of Inquiry (COI) which made several recommendations, one of which was to address over-crowding. Immediately there was a move to alternative sentencing policy; prisoners were transferred away from the Camp Street jail to the other prisons, with most being sent to Mazaruni. This was apparently not enough.
The Camp Street prison population was reduced from some 1,300 when the fire broke out last year. It was bursting at the seams. When the prisoners set it alight on Sunday last, it had just a tad over 1,000 souls. The government, aware of the overcrowding, kept erecting dormitories inside the prisons. Just a few months ago a new dorm was completed to house an additional 150 prisoners.
To date, the government has spent hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars on COIs. There have been criticisms of these COIs, but there has also been ready acknowledgement and implementation of some of the recommendations by the administration.
One recommendation from the COI into the education system saw the intervention of a remedial Mathematics programme. Less than one year later, the skeptics are singing the praises of the people who pursued the implementation and saw a marked improvement at the National Grade Six level.
However, it is clear that the Prison system is not meeting the needs of the population it serves. In increasing numbers, younger people are heading to jail because the education system is failing the young men, many of whom have chosen the wrong role models.
Then there is the question of rehabilitation. This is not something that the prison has the capability to pursue as rigorously as it should. It simply does not have the skilled people to deal with the psychology of the criminal. The reality is that many of the young criminals became part of the revolving door policy—they came in, left and returned.
But if the saying “out of evil cometh good” is true, then the one good outcome from the prisoners’ insurrection at the nation’s main penitentiary should be a new prison outside of the city environs. It should be done to honour those prison officers whose death in the line of duty must be remembered. However, no one should hold their breath that this will ever happen.
In the wake of the last prison riot which was one of the worst in the Caribbean, it was stated unequivocally that the cost of building a new prison elsewhere will cost billions of dollars and that the government cannot afford to bear such cost.
Time will tell if the government is going to make changes to its policy on a major prison. It may argue that it has to weigh the cost of making life better for its people or spending to protect people from themselves, because the criminals are the products of the society.
We express sincere condolences to the family of the deceased and hope for the full recovery of those injured and otherwise traumatized as a result of this tragedy, the most recent insurrection.
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