Editorial | New prison no luxury

If we understand Prime Minister Andrew Holness correctly, building a modern maximum security prison is not a top priority of his administration.

Mr Holness has two concerns.

One is cost. Prisons are expensive. So, constructing one now would divert resources from what, to some people’s minds, may be more pressing projects.

Second, there could lead to political blowback.

Or, as Mr Holness framed the argument last week: “The issue, of course, is budgetary constraints. There are many demands on the Budget.

“Building a new prison would certainly draw attention as to whether or not that is a wise use of funds when we need new hospitals, good schools, roads, and all the other issues.”

But perhaps a better way to posit the issue is whether Jamaica can afford not to build a new, modern prison, and what does the state of the island’s correctional facilities say about Jamaica as a society.

Additionally, we might ask whether a new prison has to be financed by the Government.

With respect to the latter point, either Mr Holness or his national security minister, Horace Chang, might explain the status of a more than two-year-old proposal by a private group to build, own, operate and, eventually, transfer (BOOT) a state-of-the-art facility, for which the Government would annually pay no more than what it currently spends on the upkeep of the correctional services.

Apart from the initial confirmation by Dr Chang of the unsolicited bid, the Government has not engaged in any public discussion of the idea, as was suggested by The Gleaner.

The renewed focus of the problems of Jamaica’s prisons, however, opens an opportunity for Minister Chang to begin this dialogue.

REPRISED ATTENTION

The reprised attention on prisons was triggered by last week’s killing of eight people, and the injuring of nine others, in a drive-by shooting in the parish of Clarendon, which the head of the police crime unit, Deputy Commissioner Fitz Bailey, claimed was partially hatched by gang bosses from behind bars.

It is not the first time such assertions have been made about the ability of convicts to continue to run criminal enterprises from within what, supposedly, are maximum security prisons.

In fact, in the face of Mr Bailey’s remark, the new head of the Department of Correctional Services, retired army Brigadier Radgh Mason, conceded that the facilities are porous, with warders among the smugglers and facilitators of contraband.

Such problems can, with diligence, be improved. But given the state of the island’s correctional facilities, especially the maximum security ones, it is unlikely that there can be transformation.

The prisons are largely decrepit Dickensian-style workhouses, which are more likely to convert new, and sometimes petty, offenders into hardened criminals rather than reform them. Indeed, many experts warn that the conditions of the prisons contribute significantly to Jamaica’s high recidivism rate of over 40 per cent.

There are 10 correctional facilities in Jamaica. They house more than 3,700 inmates. The two key ones, Tower Street in Kingston and the St Catherine Adult Correctional Facility in Spanish Town, are the homes for 70 per cent of the prisoners. Each is overpopulated by between 30 per cent and 40 per cent.

CRUMBLING FACILITIES

The latter, built 370 years ago, started life as a slave barracoon. The former is 179 years old. Both have undergone bits and pieces of refurbishment and upgrades over the years. But there is just so such that can be done with crumbling facilities, especially while they continue to accommodate inmates.

Indeed, over the past three decades, domestic justice system reform analysts, as well as local and and international human-rights campaigners – including United Nations and Organization of American States rapporteurs – have impressed upon successive administrations the urgency of reform.

In its 2023 report on human rights in Jamaica, for example, the US State Department described conditions in the island prisons and detention facilities as “harsh and life- threatening, due to gross overcrowding, physical abuse, limited food, poor sanitary conditions, inadequate medical care, and poor administration”.

Some of those conditions worsened after an earthquake last October weakened structures at Tower Street and St Catherine that caused government engineers to warn that compromised sections of some cell blocks posed “immediate danger to inmates and staff”.

In 2015, the British government under David Cameron offered to provide most of the money to build a modern prison in Jamaica. The proviso was that Jamaicans serving time in UK jails would complete the last part of their sentences at home. Britain would pay for their maintenance in Jamaica.

Mr Holness, then in Opposition, ridiculed the idea, characterising it as Britain offering prisons rather than schools. When he came to office months later, Mr Holness’ administration effectively buried the plan.

In 2020, with the matter again on the agenda, Dr Chang declared the Government’s intention to finance a prison from its own resources.

The administration, however, has been unable to find the fiscal space to do so. The proposed BOOT scheme appeared to be a potential solution – until Mr Holness’ comment last week.

Among the measures of a society’s decency and humanity is how it treats its members who run afoul of its mores and its laws. Even in punishment, the better ones offer compassion and attempts rehabilitation. Jamaica’s prisons get a failing grade.