ATTORNEY-at-law Selwyn Pieters has hailed the move to transfer several high-profile inmates from the Camp Street facility.Pieters, who recently represented the Guyana Prison Service at the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the March 3, tragedy at the Camp Street jail, said he hopes the inmates would use constructive means to resolve gang disputes, and deal with bullies.

Several prisoners and prison officers testified during the CoI that the culture of ‘bullyism’ and ‘gangs’ are major concerns at the penal facility.

A joint services-led “Operation Restore Order”, conducted at the prison Saturday, unearthed several contraband items, including offensive weapons, and resulted in the transfer of 15 prisoners believed to be the “ringleaders” to the high-security penal facility on the Mazaruni River, just off Bartica.

Reports reveal that the items seized during the raid include 149 cigarette lighters, 44 cell-phones, 30 cell-phone batteries, a quantity of marijuana, three garden files, five tattoo machines, two kitchen knives, three phone memory cards, one hacksaw blade, 173 improvised weapons, three screwdrivers and a quantity of razor blades.

PEP TALK
Pieters told the Guyana Chronicle Sunday that Director of Prisons (DoP), Carl Graham had advised prisoners at the jail during a talk with them after the search that since turning to violence helps no one, they should find constructive ways of solving disputes.

“Hopefully,” Pieters said, “the impact of this massive seizure and the transferral of the inmates on the operations of the prison would be that inmates that remain at the prison could be assured that they no longer require improvised weapons to protect themselves from the “ringleaders” or “bullies” that posed a threat to them and the officers at the Camp Street Prison.”

According to Pieters, “The operation was relatively successful, in terms of the extraction of the inmates identified as “ringleaders” or, for reasons of the institutional security that needed to be transferred to other prisons.”

While being extracted, Treon Douglas and Carl Browne, two inmates, actively put up resistance and directed threats, which were quickly neutralized with necessary but minimal use of force.

INCIDENT-FREE
The operation was incident-free, and with the unified effort of the prison service, the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Guyana Police Force (GPF) and Guyana Fire Service (GFS), it has restored confidence in the operations of the Prison Service, which is seriously understaffed.

“In terms of officers,” Pieters said, “the operation, hopefully, will restore their confidence that the State security apparatus, from the respective joint services, are completely with them as they perform their duties, and will assist, when and where, required to restore order.”

While prisoners made no complaints to the DoP, Pieters said “The prison had to be sanitised of illegal weapons that were in the possession of inmates.

“The nature, scope and variety of improvised weapons located are a serious cause for concern, and adds currency to the concerns that the officers related post March 03, 2016 in respect to the fear for their lives in the yard.”

CONTRABAND ITEMS
When asked how so many contraband items were in the jail, despite the recent successful search on March 2, Pieters said the wooden structures at the prison makes it exceedingly difficult to search, with some items being missed. He recalled too that on March 04, the inner cordon of the Georgetown Prison was completely taken over by inmates, and several weapons belonging to the prison service may have been taken by the jail men.

To prevent a repeat of contraband items entering the jail, Pieters said all must be involved.

“It involved issues of ethics, trust, loyalty and security. If every rank, officer, visitor and civilian understand these tenets and stick to it, contraband being introduced into the prison could be at its minimal.”

He however pointed out that prisoners will always find creative ways to introduce contraband into the jail, and there will always be persons who are “ethically compromised, so that whatever the risk, they will ‘try a thing’ to make a few dollars”. The prison system has to be more vigilant in recognizing those persons so that they can either be dealt with departmentally or arraigned.

Officer-in-Charge at the Georgetown Prison Kevin Pilgrim said he would not speak to the press without DoP’s approval, but could only say that the operation is titled “Operation Restore Order”, “in the light of indeed restoring order” in the place that houses some of the country’s most dangerous criminals, which had over months become out of order. He said restoring order is in itself, “not a microwave situation where you just put (something) in, press two minutes and it’s over. It takes time! The process is ongoing, and a lot of things need to be fixed.”