EDITORIAL - Sending prisoners crazy

Well over a decade ago, the matter of a shortage of psychiatrists in Jamaica's prisons and how this contributed to people being lost in the system was being hotly debated.

The Government of the day, which happened to have been formed by the People's National Party (PNP), as is the current administration, gave solemn pledges to deal with the problem. Little, it is now apparent, has been done.

This week, Stewart Saunders, the former army general who is now permanent secretary in the national security ministry, reported to a parliamentary committee that three psychiatrists operate in the prison system. It is not clear whether they are full-time employees.

Those three professionals are responsible for attending to more than 260 people in lock-ups who are diagnosed with mental illnesses. Eighty, or 30 per cent, of those prisoners are unfit to plead in court, so their cases remain unheard.

General Saunders concedes the state of affairs "is not acceptable in any way, shape or form".

So, he promises to "find mechanisms to address that category of mentally ill persons", which, we assume, includes efforts to find volunteer professionals to help with the workload.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH

But neither that, nor General Saunders' righteous indignation over the unacceptability of the situation, is good enough. What General Saunders and his boss, the national security minister, Peter Bunting, must do is provide a credible solution to the problem.

Prisons, of course, are places where transgressors of the law go to pay their debt to society and the persons they offend. But it is not solely about punishment.

The greater aim and responsibility of incarceration is the rehabilitation of offenders. We do a 'good' job in Jamaica. Indeed, the anecdotal evidence suggests that we make those who pass through the prison system worse - and it would not be surprising if we also made them crazy, with little prospect of cure.

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