PUBLIC Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan has declared that the country’s prisons are under control, and there is no threat to national security, although he suggested that the situation at the Georgetown Prison is abnormal, with prisoners displaying “new spunks.”“Indeed, things are not normal (at Georgetown Prison)…and of course the prisoners have gotten ‘new spunks.’ They now have cellphones, and they are dealing directly with certain opposition members, with certain newspaper reporters.

“We have to utilise whatever messaging (information) we are getting from all of this, and to use that as part of our intelligence to deal with the situation; and we are dealing with it,” Ramjattan is quoted by the Government Information Agency (GINA) as saying.

He said that while the situation at the Georgetown Prison is abnormal, the situation is under control.
“There is no national security threat, in my opinion; and based on all the information we have gotten (from the Director of Prisons and other senior officers from the prison), there is nothing that would not be controlled and contained by the Ministry and also the police and the army,” the minister stated.

Ramjattan admitted that “the very bad attitude” of prisoners, who are doing “a number of reprehensible things” to prison wardens, has “kind of damaged the morale of certain prison officers.” However, he said most of the prison officers have indicated that what they face are “about normal threats that you would have every day.”

“We have to win back that kind of morale in the prison wards. We are doing that at present by virtue of having the support of both army officers outside and policemen inside,” the minister disclosed.

A number of prison officers recently took medical leave, and officers from the Mazaruni Prison were transferred to the Camp Street facility to manage the prison population there.

Minister Ramjattan said he can understand prison wardens speaking to the media about the situation, but he cautioned that the press has a responsibility to not distort the reality, as he claimed the Guyana Chronicle did yesterday with a story entitled “National Security Threat”.

“The press has a role to play, but if the press, in its opinion, would like to carry headlines of that nature, they must be responsible enough to understand that it could have far-reaching effects, and I thought that at least there should be some responsibility in relation to headlines,” Ramjattan told GINA.

An inquiry is currently underway to ascertain the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 17 prisoners at the Camp Street jail in early March this year. A number of measures have been taken to bring back normalcy to the prison since the riots that led to the deaths, the minister noted.

These include having the army guard the outside parameters of the prison and the Tactical Services Unit (TSU) of the Guyana Police Force (GPS) guard the inside.

The decision was also taken to separate those prisoners who were identified as being instigators of the situation by sending them to other prisons. In addition, steps are being taken to move long-term, high profile prisoners from the Georgetown Prison to the Mazaruni Prison, as part of the solution of reduce overcrowding in Georgetown.

Minister Ramjattan told GINA that as recent as yesterday, the Director of Prisons, accompanied by a staff member of the Ministry, visited the Mazaruni (Region Seven) prison on another fact-finding mission.

“They have gone there to do what is called the groundwork as to the factual situation, as to where and when we can start ensuring some infrastructure work for the accommodation of both prison officers and the prisoners themselves,” the Minister said.

The plan is to move, at the minimum, 120 prisoners from the Georgetown Prison to Mazaruni. “It will be more or less a medium-term kind of infrastructure rehabilitation of Mazaruni for purposes of getting the prisoners out from a Georgetown scenario,” the minister explained.

He reiterated that increasing the capacity of the Mazaruni Prison is the best short-term measure, as the administration looks at having a more permanent solution to the problem.