Ganja plant, improvised weapons found during Lusignan Prison raid

Just over one week after alert prison officers foiled a plan to smuggle illicit items into the Lusignan Prison, a routine search on Monday at the East Coast Demerara facility unearthed a quantity of contraband items, including a ganja plant and over 30 improvised weapons.
The search, which was carried out by ranks of the Joint Services, lasted some three hours, the Police said in a release on Wednesday.
In addition to the ganja plant and the 31 improvised weapons found in the possession of inmates, other prohibited items found include: eight cellphones; 10 cellphone batteries; five cellphone chargers; two SIM cards; two memory cards; 11 pieces of metal pipes; nine pieces of wood; seven phone cards; one tattoo machine, along with ink; three ziplock bags with cannabis; one small bottle of cannabis seeds; one packet of cigarettes, and a quantity of ziplock bags.
This incident comes on the heels of the June 11 attempt to smuggle contraband items. It was reported that just after midnight on June 11, Police and prison ranks stationed at the eastern towers of the Lusignan Prison spotted a male wearing a hoodie emerging from the nearby bushes.
A “warning shot” was fired causing the suspect to flee back into the thick vegetation. The area was immediately combed, but the man was nowhere to be found. Nevertheless, the ranks discovered a bag containing a number of illicit items such as a lighter and cellphones, along with accessories.
The smuggling of contraband items remains a perennial problem within the prison system and while authorities have been working to curb the practice, several prison officers have been caught facilitating the illegal trade, which is said to be “big business”.
In fact, only last month, two prison ranks were charged and remanded after they were found with a parcel containing marijuana, which was given to them while on duty at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
The culture of contraband smuggling has proven fatal on repeated occasions. A similar raid back in March 2016 led to inmates setting alight an entire holding block inside the Camp Street penitentiary, resulting in the deaths of 17 inmates. Just over a year later in July 2017, a riot broke out at the same facility when inmates started another fire that completely gutted the Georgetown Prisons. During that inferno, over a dozen inmates escaped and went into hiding. A few days later, 13 prisoners, including some who were moved from the burnt-out Camp Street prison, dug their way out of the Lusignan Prison.
Authorities were able to recapture all but two of the escapees. The Director of Prisons earlier this year reassured the public that the search for the remaining escapees has not been abandoned.