GOVERNMENT is considering transferring some of the inmates at the crowded Camp Street Prison to the Mazaruni facility, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan has said.On Sunday, Ramjattan accompanied President David Granger and Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, to the Mazaruni Prison on a fact-finding mission, as described by the Ministry of the Presidency. Minister Ramjattan told the Guyana Chronicle that the visit was very useful for him personally, as Public Security Minister, as it provided him with a personal and first-hand experience of what obtains at the location.
Describing the visit as a learning experience, Ramjattan said he was provided with the opportunity to see what arrangements are needed at Mazaruni. He explained that arrangements would indeed be made to transfer some of the prisoners from Camp Street to the Mazaruni Prison, and that decision also prompted the meeting with the officials of the Mazaruni Prison.
It was during that meeting that the ranks raised some concerns, such as increased meal allowances, proper housing accommodation for them and their families, risk allowances, and the need for more officers at the facility should the transfers take effect, Ramjattan explained.
The minister said that with those issues aside, the officers at the location did indicate that everything else at the location was normal. He admitted that, with the new approach, there would have to be even more revenue allocation for the prisons system, to cater for these additional considerations; and while it would be a challenge initially, it would have to be done.
President Granger had said that the visit formed part of a long-term strategic plan to ensure that the Guyana Prison Service fulfills its mandate. “Our presence here is not just a gut reaction,” the President said as he alluded to the worst prison riot in the history of Guyana, which unfolded last week and resulted in the deaths of 17 inmates at the Georgetown Prison.
He added: “It is a plan to ensure that there is a long-term strategy. We are ensuring that the Guyana Prison Service fulfills its mandate. We have to build a system in which persons who enter this service as inmates would have the best opportunities for rehabilitation, and those who are incorrigible…would be prevented from bringing harm to society.”
During their tour of the Mazaruni Prison, the President and his team not only assessed the living conditions of the prisoners and the prison officers, but interacted with both parties.
Assistant Superintendent of Prisons and Officer-in-Charge of the Mazaruni Penal Settlement, Alexander Hopkinson, in a brief statement, disclosed that a total of 289 prisoners are confined at the location, with 24 of them being high-profile prisoners. He said a part of their routine includes farming, and he pointed out that four acres of land are currently under cultivation. Callaloo, thyme, pumpkin and ground provisions are among the foods being planted by the prisoners.
Some of the inmates are also engaged in joinery, he said. This was evident during the visit, as three of them were completing bed frames at the time. Though understaffed, he said, the prison officers have managed to maintain order. He pointed out that since the 1997 prison riot, there has been no other riot. However prisoners would have, in the past, escaped, but they were all subsequently captured. The staffing population is currently below its quota of 95. There are 54 persons on staff, but the Officer-in-Charge is hopeful that the staff population could be increased to a maximum of 200. But this move, he said, would require additional living quarters for the prison officers.
It was also pointed out that sections of the prison require renovation, in addition to the living quarters of officers. However, five living quarters are expected to undergo rehabilitation this year. In addition to the concerns raised by Superintendent Hopkinson, other officers raised a number of administrative issues regarding access to land, accommodation, and gratuity, among other things. They were advised to formally write the Officer-in-Charge on these issues, and he, in turn, would raise their concerns at the level of the Prison Service Commission and Public Security Ministry.
