Even as the Commission of Inquiry into the deaths of 17 prisoners at Camp Street Prison continues, President Granger is reported to have opined that “the problems at the prison will not be resolved unless there is a massive re-deployment of prisoners from Georgetown to Mazaruni Prison.” It is not known whether this suggestion was initially proffered by his line Minister in the area of National Security, Khemraj Ramjattan.
However, this was one of the recommendations of the Disciplined Forces Commission (DFC) Report submitted to parliament in 2004. Then Brigadier (retd) David Granger was a member of the DFC.
As a matter of fact, every Inquiry into the problems in the Prison Service in modern times has identified overcrowding at Camp Street Prison as the single most pressing challenge that should be addressed by the authorities.
In 2001, after spending 18 months reviewing the entire prison system, a British team reported that “Georgetown’s Camp St Prison, the country’s largest, is extremely overcrowded.” It quoted a prison officer as reporting that in 2000 there were between 900-1000 prisoners in the facility, intended to hold 500.
In summary, it “found the major problems to be overcrowding, poor conditions for prisoners and staff, perceived infringement of basic human rights, minimal rehabilitation and high costs to taxpayers. The most immediate concern of the team was overcrowding, which was attributed in large part to the lack of alternatives to imprisonment.”
The DFC Report in its recommendations for the Guyana Prison Service under the rubric “Accommodation” posited: “Given the location of the Georgetown Prison and its proximity to busy streets on all sides, there is no room for structural expansion to cope with any sizeable increase of the prison population. Therefore any increase will require additional accommodation in other prisons which are capable of structural expansion or in the construction of other prisons.
“The Mazaruni Prison has considerable room for expansion which renders the construction of a new all-male prison unnecessary. Attention should be given to expanding the Mazaruni Prison and providing it with human and material resources for greater prison intake as the solution to the overcrowding problem in the Georgetown prison.”
But security issues in our prisons in general and at Camp Street in particular are not limited to the overcrowded facilities, and the DFC stated prophetically in view of the recent carnage: “The Commission has received evidence that there is an increase in the number of violent prisoners. This poses a security threat both to the prison staff and fellow inmates.”
It quoted from the Guyana Prison Service submission on the subject of security in prisons which is presently engaging the attention of the authorities. Contrary to the assertion by the Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan that the situation at Camp St Prison is “stable” after his meeting with prisoners, the submission from 13 years ago is instructive since as with the physical infrastructure, nothing has been done to improve the security equipment of prison officers:
“It must be noted that the security equipment available in the Guyana prisons do not match the security needs of the increasingly violent, aggressive and dangerous inmate population. The three major prisons (Georgetown, Mazaruni and New Amsterdam) are most vulnerable to security threats such as escapes, riots, hostage taking and fires.
“The changing nature of prisoners’ character and the increasingly violent environment necessitate the quality and type of weapons, communication system and technology (monitoring cameras, scanners and other devices) be improved to prevent/suppress any threat to the security to these locations.”
Finally, the DFC noted overcrowding in the prisons is also due to the non-implementation of the recommendations of the Criminal Law Review Committee in reference to expeditious hearings of cases of prisoners on remand and “due reverence to and compliance with Art (4) mandate the grant of bail where the prisoner has not been tried within a reasonable time.”
