While making ministries, agencies and even Government vehicles internet-ready is one of the Government’s declared goals, it has emerged that Guyana’s prison
Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels
service is bereft of a computerised system of record keeping.
Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels, revealed during a recent press conference that much of the prisoners’ records were destroyed when the Camp Street Prison was gutted in last Sunday’s fire.
“As it relates to computerisation, I must say we have commenced that process. As it relates to back-up of that system, it is not as functional as it should be; but its budgeted for in terms of enhancing the capabilities,” Samuels said.
“All prisoners, upon admission to the prison, will be admitted with a warrant that would have specific information as it relates to the person,” Samuels explained. “A number is assigned to that person, and a photograph is taken, which will match the description documented on the warrant.”
Samuels noted that the only information in the prison storage which was not destroyed by the fire relates to the documented remand records. He noted that the warrants are also stored separately.
According to Samuels, officials were able to establish the identities of prisoners
The burnt out Camp Street Prison
who escaped by utilising the separately housed records. During the interim, there was uncertainty as to how many prisoners had actually escaped.
“We managed to retrieve almost 85 per cent of the records; and as we checked, (we were able to retrieve) about 97 per cent of the warrants. The warrant is a clear description of the person, offence, age, and where the offence was committed,” he explained.
“There is some biological data that we would capture from (questioning) the person,” he related. “As a result of that, once the warrant is there, the necessary records can be reproduced.”
Government was forced to relocate a number of prisoners from the Camp Street Prison on short notice because of the fire. Hundreds were moved to a fenced pasture at Lusignan, ECD; 83 were removed to the Mazaruni Prison; 90 were removed to the New Amsterdam Prison; 48 were moved to Timehri Prison; Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan revealed that he granted early release to 57 inmates; while, through the efforts of the magistrates who descended on the Lusignan Prison to grant bail en masse to lessen the numbers incarcerated, 26 prisoners were placed on self-bail.
Minister Ramjattan had defended the releases by stating that those released on self-bail were so recommended by the prison authorities. The Ministry on Friday released the names of the 57 who were released on self-bail.
The coalition Government had, in its inaugural budget in 2015, allocated a whopping $21B to the security sector, $11.9 billion of which went to supporting the operations of the disciplined services: the Guyana Prison Service, Fire Service and Police Force.
The sum of $24.6 billion was in 2016 announced by the Government ostensibly to develop and modernise the security sector, inclusive of the prison service.
