Dear Editor,
Over the past five to six weeks, amidst the high points of the national jubilee celebrations, we who still live here were all too conscious of some high-profile crimes and naturally, the role of the Guyana Police Force.
The police force is our national law enforcement agency. I have recently read and heard of the successes of the police investigators. Privately I’ve heard praise for Crime Chief Blanhum and Commander Hicken and interestingly, there is now a Commissioner of Police who sounds engaging and professional, as well as a brand new GPF Public Relations Officer. But privately too, a single parent has been expressing frustration, fear and concern at one aspect of police procedure. Vicariously but with some caution, I too share her concern and promised to publicize the issue in order perhaps to attract some explanation, if not relief.
It has to do with the young woman’s son. He’s a lad of seventeen years six months (17½ yrs). The teenager, apparently quite intelligent and good at computers, was charged last year with fraud related to forgery of a cheque.
The mother has her own views, version and suspicions about the allegation. She has demonstrated a relentless measure of personal preliminary investigation about the allegation and the complainant, in order to brief fully her son’s defence attorney.
The court is the ultimate arbiter and judge of the lad’s guilt or innocence, whatever stakeholders’ personal knowledge or opinions. I dare not comment on what I’ve heard regarding the machinations of the case, the trial itself or expected outcomes. That is the business of the court, though we all hope for fair and just, evidenced-based decisions.
But here is the primary reason for this correspondence, based primarily on my shared concern and alarm with the mother: the teenage accused at 17½ years is being treated as an adult apparently. Having been known to have absconded from the Essequibo New Opportunity Corps because he claimed that he was continuously bullied and accused of “talking too much”, he cannot return there to await trial. The police have determined that he cannot be accommodated at a juvenile centre in Sophia, Georgetown. Not yet found guilty or innocent of the alleged fraud, the police treat him as a remand ‘prisoner’ and have had him incarcerated with very adult, seasoned, sometimes dangerous accused criminals. He has been held, the mother reported, at Providence and Grove/Diamond Stations in sometimes overcrowded cells. There is no juvenile accommodation, despite police claims to the contrary. The young accused, an occasional asthmatic, has had to be rushed to the Diamond Health Facility, the worried harassed mother claims. She says she has had to speak out and speak up to tired, unkind, aggressive station sergeants and corporals, even paying a ‘top-up’ for her son to use a small piece of foam or cardboard on the cell’s concrete floor. Very senior police officers seem reluctant to criticize their system regarding juniors.
My concern and question ‒ not only in respect of this specific case ‒ is this: since the young accused is not at all responsible for the repeated postponements of his ‘matter’ in court, is it fair and just to have him cooped up for weeks with seasoned accused who can infect his mind, if not his body? Not yet guilty, I suppose the police can still suspend his human and civil rights in this land.
I read, a few weeks ago, where a convicted mass murderer in Norway demanded and obtained certain basic rights whilst serving a life sentence. I might not agree with or understand that system, but could not a young Guyanese, under eighteen, awaiting for weeks a definitive day in court, be entitled to humane treatment in police station cells on the East Bank of Demerara?
I’m still a personal supporter of the police, and law and order, and hopeful of just decisions by learned, compassionate officers of the courts. But I am moved by this mother’s travails, whether her accused offspring is guilty or not. Any responses, authorities?
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)
