The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) believes that women do not belong in prison as the three major offences that cause their incarceration are connected to “disordered relationships with men.”
Welcoming President David Granger’s extension of a presidential pardon to women prisoners and his move to pardon specific categories of prisoners, the association in a press statement said that the recent release recognizes the injustice that incarceration imposes on women “in ways that do not apply to men.” And women suffer more in prison, the association said, as reports from other societies show that women in prison experience much higher rates of sexual violence than men and from men. While the association has not received recent reports of this occurring in the New Amsterdam Prison, the higher numbers grow the more exposed women become.
According to the GHRA, women are generally incarcerated for petty theft, drug trafficking and murder and all of three many times stem from disordered relationships with men. The association is of the opinion that female drug traffickers traffic the drugs for the male king-pins or are charged jointly with men for drugs found in homes, they steal to maintain children neglected by their fathers and kill in retaliating against men who are persistently violent.
“None of these women are a danger to society – the fundamental reason for incarceration. Indeed, the society does not fear women in general– at least not in the sense of being a threat to life or property,” the release said. It was further pointed out that even women who commit violent crimes are not viewed with the dread that male perpetrators can inspire. The association made reference to a recent Australian study from the Centre for Evidence, which stated, “Women almost never scare us; commit random acts of serious violence; violate our sexual integrity; or form organised crime networks and yet their prisons numbers are now the highest in recorded history.”
Further, the press statement said that incarcerating women is a harsher penalty for women than men. “Put men in prison [in humane conditions] and provide them with cigarettes [and – it would seem – access to Facebook] and they just do the time. Women in prison are preoccupied by what is happening to their children, their homes and their partners – all of which can be dispersed and disappeared by the time they leave prison,” the release said.
And referring to what it described as the “unforgiving righteousness” of the Guyanese society about offenders, the GHRA said it appreciates the need to highlight that only women imprisoned for non-violent offences are covered by the recent presidential pardon. It said that a cursory reflection on the general issue of women in prison quickly demonstrates that it is generally unnecessary, expensive, unfair and fruitless.
It believes that instead of prison, a halfway house approach is needed where women can undergo forms of rehabilitation to restore self-esteem and learn problem-solving techniques. And since Guyana needs solutions to address the rising levels of criminality, the association said, starting a programme along the lines being suggested with women would not generate hostility to the extent it would with men.
“Such alternatives to imprisonment successfully tested with women could then be extended to men in a reverse of the thinking which saw women being incarcerated in the first place.
Moreover, in light of prison overcrowding, presidential pardons on a more regular basis would be a welcome development particularly given judicial and magisterial sloth with respect to remand prisoners and the ponderous procedures of the Parole Board,” the statement ended.
