Prisons must no longer be a liability to justice

THE Attorney General’s Chambers has done the country a service by drawing attention to a problem that can no longer be treated as an unfortunate by-product of Jamaica’s correctional system: The State’s prisons are generating lawsuits that are costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

The concern is not simply that inmates are taking the Government to court. The troubling issue is that many of these cases appear to arise from basic, longstanding deficiencies — overcrowding, inadequate bathroom facilities, poor sanitation, unsafe conditions and failures in the administration of vulnerable inmates.

The Attorney General’s Department has therefore recommended practical measures to the Department of Correctional Services including more liberal access to bathroom facilities, reducing reliance on buckets for the disposal of excrement, stronger oversight of cleaning arrangements and food standards, and rehabilitation programmes focused on hygiene and behaviour. It has also called for better systems to track inmates and ensure that those requiring judicial or medical intervention do not disappear into an administrative maze.

These recommendations deserve urgent support.

There is a tendency to regard prisoners as people who have forfeited all consideration because they have been convicted of crimes. That is a dangerous and ultimately self-defeating position. Punishment is the deprivation of liberty; it should not mean deprivation of dignity or exposure to degrading conditions. Indeed, when the State itself breaches constitutional rights, taxpayers end up paying the price — sometimes in awards running into hundreds of millions of dollars.

The approximately $120 million awarded to Mr George Williams, who spent more than four decades in custody despite having been found unfit to plead, is a particularly sobering example. It demonstrates how administrative failures — especially where mentally ill and otherwise vulnerable people are concerned — can become both human tragedies and enormous liabilities for the public purse.

Sadly, Jamaica has been discussing prison reform for a very long time. From the early 2000s there has been talk of constructing a modern, state-of-the-art prison in which incarcerated persons could be held securely but treated humanely. Yet, more than two decades later, that vision has largely remained just that — a vision. Instead, the country remains saddled with facilities in which conditions can fall far below what should be acceptable in a modern democracy.

We acknowledge the difficult fiscal choices successive governments have faced. Jamaica has spent decades operating under severe financial constraints, with prisons competing for scarce resources against health care, education, infrastructure and other vital public services. But chronic underinvestment carries its own cost. Lawsuits, emergency repairs, security failures, recidivism and the failure to rehabilitate offenders all impose costs on society.

The current Government’s stated intention to modernise Jamaica’s justice and correctional systems is therefore welcome. Investments in digital technology, infrastructure, security, rehabilitation and professional development must translate into tangible improvements behind prison walls.

As state minister Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn correctly observed this week, rehabilitation is central to the modern correctional model. That means secure custody, yes, but also health care, education, vocational training, behavioural modification, spiritual development, family engagement and post-release support.

This is not softness on crime. It is intelligent crime prevention.