A US$8 million project approved by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will help Guyana overcome prison overcrowding, by reducing pre-trial detentions and increasing the use of alternative sentencing, among other measures.The objective of the loan is to contribute to the high concentrations of prison populations in the country, which stands at 256 per 100,000 of the national population, well above the world average of 146 per 100,000. The Guyanese criminal justice system tends to use incarceration as the default sanction.
However, high rates of imprisonment have been associated with an individual’s future proclivity for crime and difficulties in securing employment, among other negative factors. Building or expanding prison facilities can be a short-term fix for overcrowding, but if root causes are not addressed, the new facilities will eventually be filled.
The project is divided into two components. The first component seeks to reduce the use of pre-trial detention, especially for individuals accused of minor offences. The idea is to provide better legal assistance to individuals accused of non-violent offences, improve prosecutors’ ability to handle cases according to the seriousness of the offence, strengthen the judiciary, and design and implement a restorative justice programme. A second component seeks to increase the use of alternative sentencing by the criminal justice system in Guyana. This includes strengthening the country’s legal-drafting functions, modernising probation services and implementing a pilot project at the level of Magistrates Courts to apply alternatives to imprisonment to non-violent offenders.
The programme is designed to complement a previously approved citizen security programme targeting high-crime neighbourhoods. The US$8 million loan is divided in two parts. Four million dollars is financed via the IDB’s ordinary capital, has a 30-year amortization period and an interest rate based on Libor. The remaining US$4 million is through the IDB’s subsidised lending arm. It has a 40-year amortization period and a fixed interest rate of 0.25 percent.
During his recent budget debate presentation, Attorney General, Basil Williams, had disclosed that pending approval of the IDB loan, the ministry will set up a project execution unit to spearhead implementation and monitoring.
Earlier this year, top officials of the executive and the judiciary had met to craft a strategy to reduce the huge backlog of cases that has bogged down the court system here for years and created overcrowding in the prison system. The meeting came days after a deadly riot broke out at the Georgetown Prison, resulting in deaths of 17 prisoners. Surviving inmates have mainly blamed the riot on poor conditions at the prison, including delays in their trials and long periods of remand.
President David Granger had instructed that a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) be held into the deaths of the 17 inmates of the Capital ‘A’ Division of the Camp Street jail. In their report, the commissioners revealed that as at February 29th, 2016, the Georgetown Prison housed 979 inmates and this is estimated to be 448 or 84% over the maximum accommodation capacity. According to the report, the prison should house a maximum of only 531 prisoners. It was noted that of the 979 detainees, 55 are living in dormitories five times smaller than the recommended standard prescribed for that number; 61 are living in areas four times smaller than recommended; 123 are living in areas three times smaller than the recommended standard; 311 are living in spaces two and a half times smaller than the recommended areas and 205 are living in areas half the recommended size.
“In overall terms, only 79 of the 979 inmates live in areas that meet international standards with respect to space. Almost half of inmates (47%) are living in enclosed spaces with three times as many people as is recommended for minimum standards of physical and mental health, to say nothing of human dignity,” the CoI concluded. According to the report, considerations of air, light, absence of regular running water and inadequate waste-disposal facilities need to be taken into account, pointing out that food quality deteriorates as the prison budget stretches to cover more meals than originally calculated. The personal hygiene of prisoners deteriorates as well.
“As the problem gets worse, inmates spend more and more time locked down in these harsh conditions, unable to move to work stations, recreational facilities, educational classes and other activities, because such activities are sacrificed to the need of overworked prison officers to complete the basic tasks of supervising meals and ablution schedules,” the report noted.
Moreover, the CoI found that reducing numbers in prison to manageable levels is the single most important priority for establishing safe, humane and purposeful prisons. It was further noted that repeat offenders have increased by over 100%, “indicating not only a waste of taxpayer dollars but also the need for a more comprehensive and structured partnership within the wider justice system.” Chairman of the commission was Justice James Patterson and the other commissioners were Dale Erskine, a former prisons director, and Merle Mendonca, a human rights activist.