Discussion Paper
circulated to participants at the Sentencing Policy Conference held in the
Judge’s Chambers, Court Room No 2, prior to the June 2001 Criminal Assizes.
1.
Internally, the Prison
continues, since my last visit prior to the February Assizes, to be run
entirely by the inmates. The institution
is completely controlled by a group of gang-leaders referred to by both the
inmates and by the warders as “the Radicals.”
The Radicals decide which inmates sleep in which cells, who talks to
whom, what the distribution of drugs and alcohol is to be, and at what cost,
who will work and who will stay in the prison yard, who gets beaten and who
gets stabbed. The warders remain outside
of the Prison yard. In practice, they only
provide a ring around the men inside, who live subject only to gang
regulation. The Prison continues to be
awash with blood nearly every day. The
Radicals order the nails and teeth of inmates to be pulled as routine
punishments. Beatings, rapes, stabbings
and arm-breakings are standard conditions of living in the Prison. There is no reason to believe that HIV
prevalence has reduced from the 40% level reported in February. Drugs, money, weapons and alcohol continue to
pour over the walls and through the gate.
The Acting Superintendent reports that certain warders co-operate with
the convicts. They allow all forms of
contraband through the main gate. He
says they do this sometimes for money and sometimes from fear of certain gang
members.
Attitude of Warders
2.
The warders no longer
patrol the internal prison yard, either in the day or in the night. They stay outside the gate, except when their
senior officers force them inside. They only
venture inside in large patrols, and for short periods of time. The warders can see when an inmate is having
his teeth extracted with pliers or a hammer and nail, or his limbs broken with
bed-boards. They consider themselves
powerless to intervene. This has
happened right up against the gate that separates the inmates from the
warders. The warders have been afraid to
open the gate to rescue the inmate being assaulted. Inmates are beaten into unconsciousness by
other inmates in front of warders. Out
of fear they do nothing to intervene.
Their lives as well as the inmates’ lives are continuously at risk. On the day of my visit to the Prison, 5
inmates were reported by the Acting Superintendent to have been hospitalized
for serious injuries. The warders who
had observed the altercation in question are reported to have locked the men
involved in a cell and told them to go ahead and kill themselves. No proceedings are expected to be brought
against any of the convicts or the warders in question. In terms of conditions prevailing at the
Prison, there was nothing unusual or exceptional in the incident. There is unlikely to be any written record
made anywhere of the incident, or of the wounds given and received by the
inmates.
Incidents Book
3.
No report is made by any
warder of any mutinous or violent assault committed by any inmate in his
presence. There is in effect no
requirement on the part of the prison authorities that such incidents be
reported or proceedings brought against the offenders. No mechanism presently exists for making any
such report. The “Incidents Book” for
reporting such matters has not been kept for some years. No record of any injuries is kept by the
warders. No punishments are imposed by
the Superintendent or the visiting justices.
Criminal charges are not routinely brought for criminal offences
committed by inmates.
Enforcement of Rules
4.
None of the existing Prison
Rules designed for the good management and governance of the Prison and the
inmates appear to be enforced. The Rules
are not discussed among the warders or the inmates. No copy was immediately available for
inspection on the visit to the Prison.
There is no need to make new Rules.
The present Rules have to be circulated and discussed and strictly enforced
if the situation in the Prison is to be improved. The existing Rules, if enforced, could bring
about a transformation of conditions in the Prison.
Medical Facilities
5.
There is a Doctor’s Record
kept by the Prison Doctor. It is mainly
used for recording prescriptions of medication.
The medical authorities do not regularly fill these prescriptions. The authorities seldom deliver the medication
prescribed by the Prison Doctor to the inmates in question. The Acting Superintendent has stated publicly
that in the absence of official supplies, he had personally spent thousands of dollars
out of his own pocket over the past two years providing inmates with vital
drugs for diabetes and other chronic illnesses they suffered. The convicts I spoke to confirm that the
claim is true.
6.
The Prison Clinic under
construction on my last visit in February is still incomplete. There is no facility at the prison to treat
injuries. Battered and wounded inmates
cannot be treated in any way at the Prison.
They have to wait for many hours after their beatings for transport to
be organized to take them to the casualty department at the public
hospital.
7.
The previous Prison Doctor
has ceased regular visits to the Prison.
It is thought she has been transferred.
I was told that it is believed that a new doctor has been assigned to
the Prison. He has not visited in the
several weeks since the previous doctor ceased attending.
8.
The completion and
equipping of the Clinic, the resumption of regular medical visits, the
immediate compliance with directions given by the doctor, and the taking of
sensible and practical measures to reduce the risk of transmission of the HIV
virus, will go a long way to making conditions in the Prison more humane.
Visiting Justices
9.
The warders reported that
no visiting justices have enforced the Prison Rules at the Kingstown Prison for
many years. Only the visiting justices
can impose the punishments for serious infractions provided by the Prison
Rules. In the absence of a
professionally functioning and well-trained board of visiting justices, the
Prison Rules cannot realistically be expected to be enforced.
10. The Acting Superintendent reports that the visiting justices have not
been to visit the inmates for several months, certainly not since either the
last sitting of the Court of Appeal or of the last Assizes.
11. The Court of Appeal, at its last sitting in St Vincent in February past,
ordered the visiting justices to prepare and submit to the Court a Report on
Prison Conditions. The Court of Appeal
next sits in July. In my visit to the
Prison I enquired on how the report was progressing. I was informed that the Report has not been
completed. It is not expected to be
completed for presentation to the next sitting of the Court of Appeal. I was told that the chairperson of the
visiting justices had been preparing the report. I was told that before she could complete her
report, general elections had resulted in a change of administration, and she
had been dismissed as a JP. She will no
longer be able to complete the Report.
No one at the Prison could inform me whether there was presently a new
chairman or a functioning board of visiting justices.
Inadequate Facilities
12. There appear to be two principal causes of the present unacceptable
state of affairs at the Prison. The
first is that the building and facilities are under-funded and inadequate. There is an unacceptable lack of provision by
the authorities of minimal financial, human, and material resources for the
Prison. Two token examples can be
given. First, the food of the men is
still cooked on open wood-fuelled fires in the prison yard. The modern kitchen built at the initiative of
the present Acting Superintendent remains unequipped and unused. Secondly, the men mainly sleep on the concrete
floors of their cells. Their beds are
unusable because they lack wooden slats on the beds. These are removed by gang leaders to be used
as weapons or for illicit cooking in the cells during the nights. The other unacceptable physical conditions
described in the last Assizes as a result of my first visit to the Prison in
February, remain unalleviated.
Lack of Professionalism
13. The second cause of the unacceptable state of affairs at the Prison is
the complete lack of professional training for the warders. None of them has ever received any kind of
training, according to what I have been told.
There is an Acting Prison Superintendent at the Prison. The Acting Superintendent is a retired police
officer with no previous experience in running a prison. The presently vacant post of Superintendent
of Prisons has not been advertised. The
Acting Superintendent tells me that no one is presently away at an appropriate
institution studying to fill the post.
The last time any warder is said to have received any training was in
about the year 1984. As a result, none
of the warders has any idea of the most basic techniques for maintaining order
and discipline in a prison. The warders
do not enforce any Rules. They do not
appear to be aware of the Prison Rules.
Some of them are said to be unable to read and write.
14. Those warders with ability and motivation should be sent away on
attachments at better-run prisons in our region so they can learn how to
perform their duties. If the aid
agencies provide foreign training for prison officers, their assistance should
be accepted. For the conditions in the
Prison to improve, it is essential that the science of prison management and
prisoner control be taught and enforced.
The authorities should consider enforcing a zero tolerance to crime and
insubordination regime in the Prison.
Lack of Discipline
15. The Acting Superintendent reports that the warders do not obey his
instructions. He is a retired police
Superintendent, and not “one of them.”
He finds himself powerless to discipline mutinous warders. When he attempts to do so, they claim to be civil
servants and only amenable to the Public Service Commission. He complains there are no rules made for the
disciplining of warders that he can enforce.
16. Some of the warders yearn for the good old days when the Superintendent
ruled the prison by terror and extremely violent methods. The methods used then, they say, may have
been illegal, but the warders and inmates were safe from the level of violence
now current.
17. No pending charge against any mutinous warder has been brought to my
attention. If any charges do exist, they
are not being pursued.
18. This is a completely unacceptable state of affairs. There is an urgent need for the authorities
to weed out the bad eggs from among the warders. They need to be prosecuted and dismissed if
convicted. They need to be replaced by
properly motivated and trained new officers.
If the existing Prison Rules for ensuring discipline continue not to be
enforced, the future will remain bleak.
The provision of a new Prison without a completely new attitude among
the warders will be a complete waste of time.
Lack of Security
19. The newspapers report that the police have been stepping up their raids
on the Prison. Each raid continues to
see the confiscation of ever increasing volumes of contraband. This includes not only drugs, alcohol, and
money, but also weapons. More frequent
Police raids on the Prison are called for.
Security at the gate needs to be stepped up. Detachments of police officers need to be on
permanent duty at the Prison. They need
to be stationed both inside and outside the Prison. They need to be there in rotation over 24
hours a day for the foreseeable future.
They will need to remain there until the prison is properly staffed with
trained warders, and the prisoners have been brought under discipline. Their duty would not be to enforce Prison
Rules. Their duty would be to apprehend
and prosecute persons committing crimes.
Violent acts would be investigated and prosecuted. Inmates found with contraband would be
prosecuted. Warders who permit the
introduction of contraband would be investigated and disciplined by the
appropriate authority. Warders
committing offences would be prosecuted and dismissed if convicted. Members of the public who introduce
contraband must be prosecuted and punished.
So long as the authorities fail to enforce the law, and continue to
permit the Prison Rules to be ignored, the Prison remains unsafe as a place of
incarceration for the normal convicted person.
II – Comments on Fining
20. This court will need to be particularly sensitive in future when
imposing a fine. There is no point in
imposing a fine that cannot be paid. If
there is no means to pay the fine, it is preferable that some other penalty be
imposed. If the convict is to be
imprisoned, it is better that that penalty be as a result of its deliberate
selection by the court.
21. It is not proper that some person other than the judge or magistrate
decides which convict will be sent to prison for failure to pay a fine, and
which other convicted person will be given the favour of remaining at
liberty. That state of affairs is
illegal. It removes the sentence of
imprisonment from the judiciary and transfers it to officers of the executive.
22. Ours is an impoverished nation.
Most employed persons in this community earn only EC$20.00 per day. Most convicts come from the poorest class of
persons. Few of them can afford to pay
any but the most trivial of fines. In
future, only if this court has thoroughly investigated the means of a convicted
person, and is satisfied as to his ability to pay a fine, will a fine, with a
term of imprisonment in default, be imposed.
Giving an unemployed man time to pay a fine is no solution.
23. In cases where a fine is the chosen penalty for a particular offence,
the court must adopt exceptional devices to ensure that an imposed fine can be
paid. For example, the court may
consider delaying imposing the fine until the convicted person appears in court
at a later date with money in his pocket.
In that way, the proposed fine can reasonably be imposed with every
expectation that it will be paid. If the
person is unable to appear before the court with adequate funds in his
possession, then the court must deliberately consider whether a sentence of
imprisonment or some other penalty is appropriate. It will not be a just sentence to let the
convicted person got to Prison more or less by accident.
III – Comments on Probation
24. The Probation Department has not had its situation improved since the
last Assizes. The members still perform
all the social welfare activities of the government. They are still without resources to provide
probationary supervision. No probation
service other than counseling can be performed.
Due to the lack of transportation, they cannot visit probationers. Only if a person on probation is so
considerate as to visit the office will he receive a little counselling. This is not the intention or purpose of a
probation order.
IV – Comments on Remand Prisoners
25. Given the conditions described above, only the most hardened and violent
criminals should normally expect to be imprisoned in the existing
facility. My visit revealed that a large
portion of the inmates continue to be very young men. The Superintendent reported that over 30 of
the 270 inmates there in the Prison at the time of the visit were on
remand. These are men who have not yet
been convicted of any offence. They are
awaiting their trial. Meanwhile, they
are being mixed in among the convicted murderers and robbers. Very bad things are happening to them both mentally
and physically that were never intended.
26. Many of those on remand at the time of my visit appeared to be
first-time offenders. Many of the
inmates continue to be very young persons.
Even in normal circumstances, young persons and first-time offenders are
seldom, if ever, sent to prison. Only
the most violent and serious of offences would warrant imprisonment in the case
of a first offence. Many of these young
first-time offenders may be in Prison only for failing to pay an
unrealistically high fine, and not as a deliberate decision to sentence them to
a term of imprisonment.
27. One of the ancient powers of a judge at the criminal Assizes has always
been to clear the Prison of persons who are illegally held there. This power was originally given to the judge
by a special Writ of Gaol Delivery. Now,
it is an inherent part of his powers during the Assizes. A token of its original function remains in a
ritual performed at the end of each Assizes.
Then, the Superintendent of Prisons makes a Prison Return to the
judge. He reports on how many inmates
are in his custody. Normally, the judge
just listens to the Return and nods his head.
It is now time to bring the process back to something of its original
purpose.
28. During the course of the coming
Assizes, I intend to have the Superintendent of Prisons report on every
prisoner on remand in the Prison. I
shall want to know what each prisoner is on remand for. I shall want to know how long he has been on
remand. All but those who qualify, as
repeated and violent criminals, for continued incarceration in the present
facility will be ordered released on bail if they have been on remand for more
than a few days. To ensure the Prison
remains permanently cleared of unsuitable inmates, I intend to go through the
same procedure every week until the end of the Assizes. If I discover it to be permissible, I would
continue to clear the Prison of all but the most violent remanded persons every
week in between the Assizes, until conditions have returned to an acceptable
level.
