– Inquiry Commission chairman says recommendations should be implement “like yesterday”

By Shauna Jemmott

PRESIDENT David Granger Wednesday received the report of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the March 3 Camp street riot which left 17 persons dead, calling it a “landmark report” in what was the country’s worst prison upheaval.

The report was handed over by Chairman of the Commission Justice James Patterson at the Ministry of the Presidency in Georgetown and has already found favour with the President ,who said its recommendations are vital to the country’s criminal justice system.

“This is a landmark report. It will affect a very important element in our criminal justice system and I would like to assure you all that the efforts of the Government of Guyana will be directed towards ensuring that this country becomes a safer place and that the core of our children and our men and women going into the prisons…when they come out they would not want to go in again,” the President said.
The handing-over ceremony was also attended by Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, Minister of State Joseph Harmon, Director of Prisons Carl Graham, Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Chief-of-Staff Brigadier Mark Phillips, Assistant Commissioner of Police David Ramnarine, Permanent Secretaries of the Departments of the Public Service and Ministry of Public Security, Commissioners and supporting staff of the CoI.
President Granger said his government was happy to receive the report, for which the CoI had stuck to its final deadline.
He pointed out that even though the Commission came under serious criticism even before it started and persons were asking “Why a commission?” he wanted to find out what happened, why it happened, how it happened.
“We are aware that something has to be done and before we took action we had to find out exactly what the conditions were, particularly at the Georgetown Prisons”.
While government does not want “anybody to die in the prisons under these circumstances or any circumstance”, it has also taken into consideration that the prison is in the heart of the highly populated capital city, in the vicinity of a residential area, schools and business places, “and we want to make sure that there is no threat to human safety ever again.
“We want to make Guyana safe and at the same time, we want to ensure that persons who are (resident at the) correctional facility do not feel that this is a lifetime occupation.”
Independent Guyana inherited a prison system which, with its three main prisons located in Georgetown, Mazaruni and New Amsterdam, was built in colonial times.
“They’re all over a century and a quarter old,” he pointed out, and later Lusignan and Timehri prisons were built to supplement those three.
Over the years the prison population has outgrown the infrastructure, and the government is addressing the issue.
“We are dealing with the prison system and we have a good idea what needs to be done. We’re going to be strengthening Mazaruni and we’re going to be continuing the process of redeploying prisoners from Georgetown to Mazaruni ,but the infrastructure of Mazaruni has to be improved,” the President told the media in an invited comment.
Along with providing facilities to encourage inmates to alter their behaviour, government is also considering policies for alternatives to incarceration, and improving the production of food in the Guyana Prison Service. Prison staff will also be trained.
“Starting this year, prison officers will be trained in the police academy, so we expect that that will raise their level of competence. The number of prison officers will be augmented so that Mazaruni will have a larger core of prison officers and we’re going to build into the prison officers – among the prison officers – a team of officers who will be able to respond to incidents like the one that occurred on the 3rd of March, so we shouldn’t need to call out the defence force and the police force to support the prison service. They will have their own capability.”
Granger said the March 2 to 4 riots have been the worst in the history of Guyana, and has triggered the National Security Committee to make prison reform a vital point on its agenda at every meeting over the past three months.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the CoI, Justice Patterson, described the journey as one with “lots of trials” but thanked his commissioners and supporting staff for making it one that “ended well” delivering the Coi report just one day short of the May 31 deadline.
He pointed to the urgency of implementing the recommendations saying, “It is hoped that they will be executed in a timely manner, because they so deserve to be.”
He listed some of their other concerns such as improvement of physical and social services and overcrowding.
“Our concern is that our concerns are urgent, immediate and we want it done like yesterday,” Justice Patterson said.
He said given the limited time the commission had to fully execute its duties, “We were able to make it adequate.”