With a growing number of inmates recently ending up in court for ganja trafficking in the Georgetown Prison, there are concerns about security at the facility which spawned the 2002 jail-break.
Last Tuesday, murder accused Brian Haywood was sentenced to four years in jail after admitting to trafficking in ganja in the prison. In addition to the number of cases before the court, the amounts found in the possession of inmates have been increasing. Many former and present inmates have told this newspaper that the sale of the narcotics in the jail is a lucrative business. Prison officers have been repeatedly accused of colluding with prisoners to smuggle illegal items, including drugs, into the prison for a fee.
Attempts by Stabroek News to make contact with Prisons Director Welton Trotz for comments on what steps he and his officers are taking to deal with this situation were futile.
Opposition leader David Granger, in commenting on the recent cases, said that a lot of faults exist at the Georgetown Prison and it should be relocated.
According to him, the location of the prison, “in the middle of the city,” is not secure. Additionally, he said that the large amounts of remanded prisoners has led to the facility becoming overcrowded, which adds to the problem. “The prison needs to be relocated. A lot of the prisoners are remand prisoners. They are not convicted but are prisoners who are awaiting trial for various offences and cannot be treated as convicts,” he said.
In order to deal with the ganja that is making its way into the facility, he said the prison administration ought to pay close attention to how prison officers are selected, training them properly, paying them better and also supervising them to ensure that they are performing their duties in an effective manner.
The Georgetown Prisons, Granger noted, was constructed in the 19th century and work done on the structure has not been enough to tackle the many problems affecting the facility.
“The present location is inappropriate and insecure… it is far from ideal, it is not adequate,” he said, while pointing out that ranks from the TSU are strategically placed outside of the prison compound.
Granger recalled that in 2004 the Disciplined Forces Commission in its report had recommended that the prison be relocated. He also noted that when Ronald Gajraj was Minister of Home Affairs this issue was discussed and a location had actually been chosen for the building of a new prison.
Meanwhile, a security source said that the drugs are entering the prison in one of two ways; either through the prison gate or over the fence. It was noted that the latter way seems farfetched as the offenders run the risk of being seen because the prison compound is surrounded by houses. Additionally, the source noted that there are policemen and prison officials keeping guard and if one tries to throw a package over the wall they would likely be caught.
According to the source, over the years it is known that drugs are sometimes concealed in food items that are being taken to self-support prisoners. He said at the gate a system is in place to check all food before it is given to the prisoner.
The source said that the fact that the ganja is found in the cells and in a few cases on the person of a prisoner speaks volumes. It was noted that this points to collusion between the prison staff and the prisoner. The source noted that if food is checked, the drugs will certainly be discovered. The source said that it is either the prison officers are not checking properly or they are colluding with persons on the outside as well as the prisoners to get the ganja into the prison.
The source said that what is commendable is that prisoners are actually being caught. It was noted that surprise searches have yielded success. He, however, expressed concern that over time the prisoners will come up with means and ways of hiding the drugs.
It was pointed out that prison wardens have been implicated over the years but it appears as though nothing much is being done to hold them accountable and deter others from engaging in similar activities.
He pointed to an attack at the New Amsterdam Prison in which the wardens were accused of supplying the perpetrators with the cutlasses and acid used by inmates to hurt other inmates. One of the injured prisoners, Davendra Harricharran, had told Stabroek News prison officials are aware of the entry of illegal items into the prison. He also said items get into prison at a price.
The source told this newspaper that such an accusation is a serious one and he questioned whether those in authority had investigated it. “This is the sort of thing that ought to be investigated so to determine if there is any truth to it. If such things are given a free passage into the prison, then drugs would be no different,” he said.
He questioned whether the drugs are being sold in prison or whether prisoners found with drugs are using it for his own personal benefit. “This is serious. If they can get access to drugs, acid, cutlasses and cell phone, you have to wonder whether they have firearms in there too,” the source added.
In the case of ganja, he questioned whether wardens do not smell the scent when the drug is being smoked. He said such a scenario should also give rise to concerns that the prisoners have access to matches.
“Ganja smoke is not hard to miss. So when they guys are smoking, do the wardens choose to ignore the smell?” he said.
He also stressed that the state of the prison is frightening. Like Granger, he said it is too crowded and this would make it harder to manage. He said that one has to keep in mind that the number of wardens posted to the prison population at Georgetown Prison is very inadequate.
Haywood, who is a remand prisoner, was sentenced last week by Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry after he decided to change his plea to guilty. He had initially appeared on October 20 and denied that he had 63 grammes of cannabis in his possession for the purpose of trafficking at the Camp Street Prison.
In addition to the sentence, he was fined $75, 600.
Prosecutor Deniro Jones told the court that police and prison officers were conducting routine searches when the illegal substance was unearthed in a bucket in his cell.
Another murder accused, Trevor Abrams, was last month found guilty of concealing 83 grammes of cannabis in a pillowcase. He was sentenced to 50 months in prison. Additionally he was ordered to pay a fine of $125, 000.
Even at the time of his sentencing he maintained his innocence.
Prosecutor Joel Ricknauth, who presented the police’s case, had told the court that a search was conducted on a pillowcase that Abrams had in his possession and 138 Ziploc bags of cannabis were found concealed.
In October, another prisoner, Sewdat Chunilall was also sentenced for ganja possession. It is alleged that Chunilall, on October 18, 2014, had in his possession 37 grammes of cannabis for the purpose of trafficking.
According to Prosecutor Simone Payne, Chunilall was serving a five-day prison sentence for narcotics when he was taken out of his cell to do cleaning. Acting on information received, the police subsequently contacted him and they learnt that he received the cannabis from a female. Payne added that when the police approached him about it, Chunilall threw the substance over a fence.
Apart from the prisoners, a prison warden was recently convicted for smuggling ganja into the prison.
Akeem Vyphuis, 22, was jailed for 56 months and also fined $418,500 for the offence.
The charge against him stated that on July 14, at the Camp Street Prison, he had in his possession 279 grammes of cannabis for the purpose of traffick-ing.The prosecution’s facts stated that Vyphuis had reported for work via the main entrance of the prison compound carrying a black haversack and failed to subject himself to a search. The court was told that shortly after he was seen by a Cadet Officer throwing five parcels on the ground from the haversack. The police were summoned and he was later arrested and charged.
