The design for the rehabilitation of the Brickdam lock-ups has been completed and work is set to start by the end of the year to the tune of $10M, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee said yesterday.
The lock-ups has been in the spotlight recently over its woeful and insanitary conditions and when asked about its renovation Rohee yesterday said he would not give a timeframe on when the work would be completed but said “hopefully it would by the end of this year.”
The renovation of the lock-ups is among the projects that will benefit from the $13.6 billion budgeted for the security sector in this year’s national budget.
Many persons who have spent time in the Brickdam lock-ups have described it as an experience they would not wish on anyone. On Monday at the opening of the annual general meeting and conference of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police (ACCP), Caricom Assistant Secretary-General Dr Edward Greene spoke about the dehumanising conditions under which persons are detained. He said such conditions “epitomise the abuse of their human rights,” which has “serious implications for the image of the police and the legitimacy of their role as one of the agencies of human and social development.”
Minister Rohee, when asked about Dr Greene’s comments, said he understood the context in which the Caricom official spoke since he represented the Caricom Secretariat and not necessarily any government. However, in relation to Dr. Greene’s quoting a section of a Stabroek News editorial to bring home his point of police reform, Rohee said he was “not sure how balanced it was in terms of reflecting the realities in the country.” He said Dr Greene’s words were nothing new as this has been said about police forces and detention centres across the Caribbean. He added that there would always be criticisms and comments that are made about police lock-ups and detention centres and it is a situation that is never perfect.
‘Puke’
The mother of two young men, who spent ten minutes in the facility two Sundays ago, told Stabroek News yesterday that she was invited to see the condition of the lock-ups when she went to collect her sons but was forced to turn back at the door. “As soon as I entered the doorway the stench was so repulsive I had to turn back and run and puke in the drain,” the woman said. One of her sons described the lock-ups from his stay as being “dark and stink.”
Last week, Owen John, who along with his two sons spent many hours in the facility, said after the experience he feels he now can endure anything. The man and his sons, who have since been charged, were arrested under controversial circumstances and were forced to spend several hours in the lock-ups.
That man had said when he and his sons first entered the lock-ups they were shocked to see about 40 men lying on a concrete floor. Some were lying on a sheet; others were on old newspaper, and the rest on the bare concrete. “It was not a pleasant sight at all,” he stated.
“The place is an abomination”, he added, “not even a dog or a pig should be kept in such conditions.” He emphasised that the “the place is stink and very insanitary and inhumane,” recalling that while he was in the lock-ups he observed a man with cuts on his mouth and back “oozing with puss.” According to him the man was clearly in need of medical attention but this was not done although he had recommended it.
Last year, a push-cart operator who spent four days in the lockups after getting into an altercation with another man told this newspaper that the two toilets in the facility could not be used because they were overflowing. There were cells, he said, which were not utilised for the purpose for which they were intended because they had become toilets, and were filled with faeces and urine. The front of these cells only is cleaned every day by a young man who sprinkles some pungent smelling disinfectant, but that hardly begins to address the extent of the problem.
A young professional with whom this newspaper had spoken to had said: “The first thing that hits you is the stench. It is a smell that no human being should have to experience. The smell is so unbearable that it causes your eyes to water and your skin to burn.”
There are no lights and prisoners sleep on the bare concrete−and in this instance−unhygienic floor. The cart-operator had said that detainees were only allowed one small drink bottle of water with which to wash themselves, and anyone who didn’t have bottles simply had to go unwashed. The thing that upset him most, he had said, was that the morning tea was served to detainees in the same bucket which was used to clean the cells. It was dished out from an enamel cup into a detainee’s bottle, and if they had no bottle then no tea.
The lock-ups are not for those who have been convicted; they are for people who have been detained by the police and who may or may not be charged. In fact, with the wrong combination of circumstances it is conceivable that ordinary law-abiding members of the public could find themselves by mistake locked up in Brickdam for a night or so.
In January 2002, Chairman of the Bar Council of England and Wales, Lord Daniel Brennan QC had recommended that the facility be shut down after a visit to Guyana aimed at improving the local judicial system. During his visit Lord Brennan met with members of the judiciary, the police force and the prison service. He had also toured the Camp Street Prison calling it a “reasonable” facility but had said that the Brickdam lock-ups should be “locked up and closed.”