The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) yesterday welcomed the renovations done to the Brickdam lockups, which it sees as removing an obstacle to the modernisation of the police force and hopes that it represents a new approach to policing instead of an isolated gesture.
“Hopefully, renovating the Brickdam lock-ups will not exhaust the reformist tendencies in the GPF,” the association said in a release yesterday.
The association also mentioned that the women’s detention facility at East La Penitence is almost as unacceptable as Brickdam used to be and while the holding centre for the adolescent males at Ruimveldt was relatively new, it still lacks most basic facilities including adequate ventilation.
According to the GHRA, there are three basic standards that define acceptable conditions of detention–reasonable size, adequate lighting and ventilation and suitable means of rest. The association said on the issue of adequate ventilation and lighting, the new facility from the outside, is not off to a good start, a shortcoming which can still rectified.
“Inadquate air flows will ensure the hallmark stench of old will quickly re-establish itself, even without overcrowding, rending the environment once again unfit either for police officers or detainees,” the association said.
The association added that it is imperative that the benefits of creating a detention facility for for human beings not be cancelled out by overcrowding and in this respect some steps should be taken to guard against deterioration of standards once the novelty of the new facility wears off.
Meanwhile, in an effort to maintaining the standards of the lock-up, the association suggestion the creation of law visitor boards for each police station whose members could routinely inspect the stations, particularly lock-ups, as an incentive to maintain good order and hygiene. The boards, according to the association, would also contribute to break-down the isolation of police facilities from the communities in which they function as without some external community involvement the will and resources required to sustain acceptable standards will inevitably erode.
