More contraband found at Lusignan Prison’s Holding Bays

Despite continued efforts to rid the local prison system of smuggling activities, authorities have once more found contraband items in the Holding Bays at the Lusignan Prison.
This discovery was made during a joint exercise conducted by ranks from the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Prisons Service on Wednesday morning at the East Coast Demerara penitentiary.
During the exercise, the following prohibited items were found: 32 improvised weapons; several razor blades; six lighters; three cellphones; three phone chargers; two SIM cards, and two containers of fermented wine.
Only Monday last, searches of five prison facilities across the country, Lusignan, yielded over 180 illicit items. These included: 21 cellphones; a SIM card; a memory card; six earpieces; four phone adapters; a quantity of phone chargers; several packets of cigarettes/bamboo; 61 lighters; 12 smoking utensils; 46 grams of cannabis; four metal forks/spoons; 52 razor blades; six compasses; five pieces of broken mirrors; five pairs of scissors; a large quantity of improvised weapons; a quantity of nails; 12 bottles of fermented wine; three bottles of pepper sauce; and a quantity of stones, ‘shaving bics’, triple ‘A’ batteries and sand paper.
Contraband smuggling has been a perennial problem within the prison system, and this is compounded by the fact that both prison and Police Officers are facilitating the illegal trade, which is said to be “big business”.
While the authorities have been struggling to curb the illegal practice, there has been a breakthrough on the apparent network among rogue prison officers. In fact, only in October, four prison officers were arrested after they smuggled a bottle of rum and a pack of cigarettes into the Lusignan Prison the weekend prior. These officers were subsequently charged and interdicted from duty.
In addition, two more ranks found themselves in hot water following the discovery of illegal items at two separate prison facilities.
In Berbice, 1032 grams of suspected marijuana and 39 packs of cigarettes were found in the New Amsterdam Prison, and a prison officer admitted to conspiring with inmates to hide the contraband items that were thrown over the fence.
Meanwhile, another Prison officer at the Timehri penitentiary was taken into custody after he was implicated by an inmate regarding the presence of 584 grams of marijuana in the compound.
Furthermore, five other prison officers were relieved of duty back in July after they were implicated in an incident whereby a parcel containing cannabis had been thrown into the Lusignan Prison Holding Bay area.
Director of Prisons (ag), Gladwin Samuels had disclosed in September that so far for the year, some 28 prison officers have been dismissed – 11 for facilitating or directly smuggling contraband into the prison system. The Prisons Director added that there were 12 ranks currently interdicted from duty, nine of whom have been charged either departmentally or criminally for trafficking-related activities.