Jamaica needs a new prison, but rehabilitation is a must

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This post was first published by Global Voices contributor Emma Lewis, on her personal blog. An edited version appears below with permission.

Crime (and punishment) is often on the minds of Jamaicans. Speaking of which, one of my favourite authors of all time, Fyodor Dostoevsky — who wrote that book — once said, “The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”

If that is true, then Jamaica has much to account for. On August 11, 2024, a horrible massacre occurred in a place called Cherry Tree Lane. What a pretty place it must be, one might think, but it is now steeped in blood after three armed men shot seven people dead during a birthday celebration, including a seven-year-old boy. Nine others were injured, including a toddler. Further down the road, the men stopped and shot another person in a gathering on the street.

Through the mists of hot air being blown around during the week or two after the killings, the question of a new prison gradually emerged — and not for the first time. Why was that? Because police asserted that the mass killing was orchestrated by someone from behind the prison walls in collaboration with overseas interests.

There is the perennial issue of corruption in the prisons, which confronts us time and again but is continuously papered over. It is one of many elephants in the room that Jamaicans would really rather ignore because it is too uncomfortable to confront, especially in a small space.

Essentially, prisoners pay for privileges, and various items, including cell phones, are smuggled in. It appears that, over the years, little has been done to prevent this, even though the activities of some prisoners are said to result in the deaths of others outside prison walls. “Hits” are ordered. One prison warden, discussing these alleged “hits,” said that they're “not just coming from the low down, the low foot of people, [they're] coming from the high horses, too.” Not much has been done to address all this.

The issue of a new prison first came up in 2015, when then British Prime Minister David Cameron paid a quite controversial visit to Jamaica. He proposed that his government would build a lovely new prison to accommodate the Jamaicans who were taking up space in his own prison back home and who would be deported at the end of their sentences, anyway.

The idea did not sit well with many Jamaicans, even though Portia Simpson Miller, Jamaica's prime minister at the time, seemed to be considering it. If a memorandum of understanding had been signed at the time, it’s likely been torn up by now. Meanwhile, although our current political administration acknowledges the need for a new prison, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has suggested that there are not enough funds in the kitty for such a major project. Perhaps we should have taken Mr. Cameron up on his offer after all.

So, I feel compelled to write about the current state of our prisons. It’s not a particularly cheerful story. A passing glance at the Tower Street penitentiary in Kingston reveals a gloomy, tottering red brick edifice bristling with barbed wire and guard towers, sitting a stone’s throw from Kingston Harbour’s somewhat murky waters.

Most of us don’t look at it, focusing instead on the high rises of downtown Kingston. I suspect, sadly, many Jamaicans are not particularly concerned about what goes on within those prison walls or who is incarcerated therein (unless they happen to be a dancehall star). As Carla Gullotta, CEO of the human rights group Stand Up For Jamaica (SUFJ) pointed out, people generally “don’t have sympathy for those in conflict with the law, because Jamaica is an aggressive society.” The prevailing attitude is that wrongdoers must be locked up and the key thrown away.

Prisons don’t have to be pretty places, just functional. They must be secure; that is clear and obvious. Tower Street Adult Correctional Facility was built to accommodate not more than 800 prisoners but now holds at least 1,700.

For SUFJ, however, a modern equivalent of the grim Tower Street building is not the way to go; any new prison must be designed with rehabilitation in mind. They should know; the organisation does a lot of work in the prison system and, despite challenges to some of its findings by Jamaica's Department of Correctional Services, has enlisted the department's help to establish rehabilitation as the best avenue to engage inmates.

Currently, access to educational opportunities behind bars is extremely limited. So much more could be done, as prison conditions are appalling, well below international standards.

As SUFJ’s Gullotta noted in a recent television interview, “Prisoners do not even have the space to lie down in a cell.” The infrastructure, she observed, “is falling apart.” After recent earthquakes, some parts of Jamaica's Tower Street and St. Catherine prisons were closed after being deemed unsafe, increasing the overcrowding.

But, let’s face it: prisons have never been a priority, whether it’s improving the current dreadful conditions, rehabilitation, or building new facilities. This sounds more like kicking the can down the road. The topic is already dropping out of the media radar. Again.

The question remains: Can we afford not to build a new prison?

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