SOME cultures had no prisons for persons guilty of anti-social behaviour. Such persons were executed or mutilated. In our Western civilisation, for at least the last two millennia, there were always prisons into which those persons had to be kept out of Society were thrown. In ancient Greece, for example, their prison was a dungeon, and a convicted person could either be thrown into it or drink the hemlock poison as Socrates did. There was never any care or concern for the convicted person who was barely kept alive in their very squalid environment. The distinction between “jail” where short-term convicts were kept and “prison” where the long term was held is a very modern American distinction.
The prisons, from Greek and Roman times, through the Middle Ages to almost the present, were places of overcrowding, poor food and clothing, rampant disease, torture and beatings by sadistic warders, dementia, and solitary confinement. Towards the end of the 18th century, with the rise of humanitarianism, there began to be calls for prison reform, and in the 19th century, mild reforms began to be made.

Guyana became a British colony in the early years of the 19th century and this resulted in British Administration and institutions being established in the colony. Among these institutions were prisons and the first prison was established in Georgetown with others later in New Amsterdam and Mazaruni.
When the Georgetown Prison was constructed on Lower Camp Street at Lot 12, that area was regarded as the remotest part of the town, and few people lived in the neighbourhood. The prison was initially not crowded and the other conditions were satisfactory by mid-19th century standards.

By the 1960s, there was overcrowding and other conditions had deteriorated and families were permitted to supply their relatives with food, toiletries, towels, and clothing. The prisoners were persons convicted of criminal or civil offences and the first political prisoners were Dr. and Mrs Jagan. Later, a few other political prisoners, like Martin Carter were sent to Mazaruni Prison.
In 2017 there was a riot wherein some prisoners set the prison on fire, which, as one of the few wooden prisons in the world, very quickly burnt out. Seventeen prisoners died in the fire, one warden died from his wounds, and five others were hospitalised. Several criminals escaped, set themselves up in Buxton as a criminal enterprise, and terrorised the country for several months before being eliminated. The prisoners, numbering less than 1000, were evacuated to the Lusignan Prison, which immediately became overcrowded with conditions deteriorating.

In the last two years, Guyana has been experiencing a swirl of social and economic development, and prison reform has come into focus. In the 2023 budget, Parliament voted to give the Guyana Prison Service $5.5 billion. These funds would be used to upgrade and mount Training Programs at the New Amsterdam, Mazaruni, and Lusignan Prisons. Lusignan, now the GPS headquarters, would receive the greater part of those funds. The training programs would teach the prisoners income-earning trades so that when released, they would be gainfully occupied and reintegrated into Society. It is also expected that their recidivism would be reduced.

Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn adumbrated his Prison Policy in Parliament: “Recently we launched a ‘Fresh Start’ project where prisoners are being trained, educated, given the tools of the trade for when they exit prison… There would be trade shops at a vocational centre for trade training and various skills such as mechanics, electrical, furniture making, animal husbandry, and other craft and trade activities… we want them to use the opportunity for getting into planting and other things…This is new for us and we are working hard to get our strategic management department to create an introduction format… There would be an upgrade to accommodate a female prison for relocation of the female prisoners from the New Amsterdam facility.”
The Lusignan Prison would have a cluster of six buildings providing modern dormitory rooms, a directorate, a command centre, lunch rooms, and a trade shop. These new buildings will have a fire suppression system and smoke detectors among security features. The Guyana prisons would now compare with the best in the Developed World and would be in readiness for full usage by year-end.

The policy of rehabilitation and reduction of recidivism is to be achieved by training in income-earning skills and trades so that when the prisoner exits from prison they would be gainfully employed and could then reintegrate themselves into society. This effort is welcome, but it needs to be complemented with a transformation of the mental persona of the prisoner for if this is done there could be no relapse and recidivism.
In the prisons of several countries including Brazil and Mozambique, the Transcendental Meditation Technique (TM) has been used with great success in transforming the mental persona and eliminating recidivism. Incidentally, prison warders and other prison officials must also take the technique. If the GPS complements its “outward” efforts of training in trades with the “inward” mental transformation by use of the TM technique it will achieve a holistic success and will, in the long run, greatly reduce the crime rate of the country.
There is at least one practising TM teacher in Guyana but the TM headquarters in the Netherlands could be contacted through their local Director, Mr. Jodha Samaroo, tel 220 7650 and they will be able to mount TM training programs as they have done and are doing in several countries.