Latest update November 2nd, 2024 1:00 AM
Jun 03, 2014 News
Board of Inquiry set up for the New Amsterdam brutality
Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee in responding to the increasing level of violence in the prisons of Guyana and an increasing number of reports of hostility has outlined an ongoing comprehensive strategic plan for reform of the Guyana Prison Service (GPS).
“The Lusignan Prison will become a model prison where only first offenders will be housed and where only those persons found with small amounts of ganja will be held far away from the hardened criminals. That will become a model prison,” Rohee noted.
The Mazaruni prison “will become the hub of the agricultural drive of the Guyana Prison Service in terms of food production and self sufficiency for the prisons itself.”
According to Rohee his Ministry does not want to be reacting. “We must have a policy. We have, as you are aware, a strategic plan for the Guyana Prison Service. We brought to the Parliament a Bill calling for a name change of the prison service from the Guyana Prison Service to Guyana Prison and Correctional Services.”
Rohee said that the name change was not proposed cosmetically; it was put forward in the National Assembly to endorse the institutional changes that are currently taking place and even though permission was not given to have the name changed “de facto changes are already taking place within the prison service.”
The Home Affairs Minister said that a number of bodies have been set up internally. These administrative measures he outlined have been taken in keeping with the Prisons Act to ensure that “a greater balance is brought to custodial as well as correctional because we believe a modern prison must have a good balance between custodial responsibilities and correctional responsibilities.”
On the correctional side Rohee said that they have taken a number of initiatives in that direction.
“I don’t want to make this sound like this is a wild statement. Prisons are prisons and while they are there at the wishes of the Court to deprive these persons of their freedom it is also the responsibility of the state to ensure that while they are held captive behind the prison walls that you initiate actions that will help those especially first offenders reform” said Rohee.
The Home Affairs Minister said that steps have been taken to reform all the prisons throughout Guyana. “In fact in the Budget 2012, 2013 and 2014 we have taken steps to change e.g. the Lusignan prison.”
He said that the changes will move from the Lusignan to Timehri prison. “Timehri, of course, will have to be shifted to accommodate the airport project but nevertheless we have plans for Timehri.
Inquiry
According to Rohee the incidence that took place at the New Amsterdam Prison where some persons believe that it was gang driven.
“We have taken the decision of the Ministry of Home Affairs to set up a board of inquiry in keeping with the Prisons Act to get to the bottom of this incident. Persons have been identified.
“One senior police rank has been identified to form the board of inquiry to go into the source and cause and to make recommendations of the incident that recently took place at the New Amsterdam Prison,” he explained.
Four high profile remand prisoners were brutally chopped and burnt by fellow inmates at the New Amsterdam Prison.
Pandemonium broke out first outside the New Amsterdam Prison and then at the New Amsterdam hospital as relatives got word of what was taking place in the penal institution.
The big question on the minds of most persons was how did the inmates get possession of prohibited materials such as cutlass, acid and cell phones, something which the inquiry will have to undertake.
The situation was quickly brought under control and the four men were rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital.
Kaieteur News was informed that the four men all received multiple chops about their bodies and were in critical conditions when they arrived at the hospital. However they were stabilized before they were transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital in two different ambulances.
It is understood that most of the illegal items were hidden in a section of the prison called “the Wall”.
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