IDB-funded report red-flags treatment of prisoners

May 29, 2018 News

Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan receiveing the report from IDB respresentative

A new report has called for several changes to the judicial justice system following interviews with several inmates.
The report, ‘Study of Inmates in Guyana’, was funded by the Inter-American Bank (IDB). It was handed over to the Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan yesterday.
Several inmates were interviewed as part of the study.
Regarding the right to a due process, some findings suggest the presence of some shortcoming in the criminal justice system in Guyana, particularly considering the police’s behaviour.
The report found that only 17.4% of detainees by the police were informed by the police that they were entitled to a lawyer. On the other hand (and more worrisome), almost four out of ten inmates said they had been hit, or that physical force had been used against them to compel them to testify or to change their statement while at the police station.
Some results show a relative level of overcrowding in the prisons. Six out of ten inmates said that there were more prisoners in prison than it was designed for.
Other findings suggest a lag in legal proceedings in Guyana where almost a quarter of the inmates (21.4%) said they were going through trial with no sentence yet, and 10.4% of the inmates reported having seen the magistrate, but the trial had not begun.
Ramjattan stated that Government commissioned the survey shortly after coming into Government in 2015. He explained that the report essentially measures the trajectory of inmates to identify core concerns.
“These findings show that we have to work harder to get it right,” Ramjattan stated.
The report also addresses the misconduct of staff.
“In recent times I have been very embarrassed; I become afraid of some of these rogue elements within the prison service, but we have to continue to work harder to ensure that our prison system is secured,” Ramjattan pointed out.
He outlined that the report places sunshine onto an institution that people feel fearful of talking about.
“We wanted to bring it out and where the sunshine is going to reveal certain things as wanting, we as a government will now have the evidence there to ensure that remedial action is taken,” the Minister stated.
The report examines the socio-demographic characteristics of the inmate population in Guyana, particularly the living conditions of inmates at their childhood and adolescence, their life stories, and their upbringing, in search of correlation that might explain their criminal behaviour that led to their arrest and incarceration.
The report also found that the two most frequent crimes for which the inmates were arrested in Guyana was intentional homicide or murder (34.9%) and drug possession or drug dealing (21.3%).

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