– in wake of recent developments at Lusignan Prison

PUBLIC Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan has formed a task force, at the behest of Cabinet, to chart the way forward in light of recent developments at the Lusignan Prison.
The developments at reference are the recent eccape of three prisoners, followed the same day by anunrest at the same facility which resulted in a fire, and several prisoners being injured.

The Guyana Chronicle was able to confirm that the task force, comprising officers from the security sectors and technical personnel with background in penal systems, met on Friday afternoon.
The formation of the task force was announced by Minister of State, Mr. Joseph Harmon, during a press conference on Friday morning at the Ministry of the Presidency.

Minister Harmon told reporters that Minister Ramjattan had briefed cabinet on Tuesday on the escape and subsequent unrest at the Lusignan Prison, which had occurred the day before. One of the prisoners has since been recaptured.

Reporters were told that based on Minister Ramjattan’s report, cabinet concluded that there were two sets of issues affecting the prison system at Lusignan.

The first set of issues, he said, are operational in nature, in that many of the prisoners have expressed their frustration over the poor quality of food and water they have been given, and the poor condition of the sanitary facilities at the prison.

“These are operational issues which are well within the parameters of the director of prisons. And the Director of Prisons was given some clear directions to ensure those matters were addressed,” Minister Harmon told reporters.

He said that after the unrest had ended and the prisoners were engaged, Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels was captured on camera sampling the food given to prisoners at the holding bay, and that he and his officers have since been advised to interact with prisoners on a regular basis to find out if there are issues brewing.

The second set of issues, Minister Harmon said, have to be dealt with on a strategic level because they require a higher level of intervention.

He recalled that following the fire at the Georgetown Prison followed by the riot back in July 2017, the Luisgnan Prison had been strengthened to facilitate the large number of prisoners who had been displaced by the incident.

HEIGHTENED SUPERVISION
“In addition to the physical strengthening of the prison,” he said, “what we did was to increase the level of supervision by the security personnel, including the Guyana Police Force ranks, and also monitoring, electronically, the facilities in there.”

As such, he said, the recent escape did not occur because there was no proper system in place, but rather because of the tardiness of the prison wardens and police ranks on duty that night, and the fact that they had reportedly fallen asleep.

Emphasising that the government, through the Public Security Ministry, has increased the levels of security not just at the Luisgnan Prison but at all other major holding facilities in the country, Minister Harmon said that to further boost the system, the government is rushing to have the expansion of the Mazaruni Prison completed at the earliest opportunity.
“We are actually fast-tracking the development and the building of the Mazaruni Prison and the holding facility which is being built in Georgetown,” he posited.

He also said that citizens need to know that the government is doing all in its powers, with support from the security forces, to prevent jailbreaks and unrests.

“We want to give the assurance to the Guyanese public that the security forces have taken the necessary measures to guarantee that these breakouts, or the efforts to break out, are minimised, and that any attempt to break out would be dealt with right there on the premises before it becomes a threat to the security of citizens of this country,” Minister Harmon said.

While the Guyana Chronicle was unable to make contact with the Public Security Minister on Friday, he had said during a press conference earlier in the week that despite limited resources, works are being done to improve prison conditions.

SOUGHT INT’L HELP
To improve the infrastructure of Guyana’s prisons, Minister Ramjattan said he has made contact with several international money-lending agencies, but that, thus far, he has received no satisfactory responses.

Said he: “I did tell them of our circumstances. We have now gotten the monies to do the Mazaruni Prison, which will accommodate in the vicinity of about 300 prisoners. We have paid off Steel Cells to rehabilitate, by the end of another four months, the Camp Street Prison which will accommodate another 140 prisoners.

“I went internationally, too, to ask for a loan, and the IMF said they don’t give loans for prisons; the World Bank said they don’t give loans for prisons; IDB said ‘No way!’ they don’t give loans for prisons.

“So I had to tell them, ‘You’re making my police force better to increase people that we arrest and put in the prisons, and you’re not helping out by giving me a loan for prisons?’”
He said that money for development now needs to be taken from the treasury, and this presents a great predicament, as there is much difficulty in prioritising limited resources.