With the promise of a “more comfortable” environment for prisoners, the three modern facilities which are currently being constructed at the Lusignan Prison are scheduled to be completed early next year, Director of Prisons (ag) Nicklon Elliott says.
Among its features, the facilities will house self-contained and dormitory-style cells, a fire suppression system and have adequate access to water.
Members of the media were yesterday given a tour of the Lusignan Prison. During the tour, the the construction site, kitchen area, quarantine section, holding areas and the farm were visited.
Prisoners were fully engaged in various activities on the prison premises. Some who were dressed in uniforms were seated in a makeshift class and were being tutored by a fellow inmate while others were busy in the kitchen area either cooking, stirring the pots, cleaning vegetables or washing dishes.
During a visit to the Lusignan Prison in August, 2020, Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn had expressed concern at the “unsatisfactory” conditions at the facility and had said that improvements would be done.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Elliott said the new facilities will offer improved living conditions for prisoners.
“Prisoners will be housed in a very comfortable way. Prisoners will be living in dormitory cell setting where there will be beds and mattresses,” Elliott said.
Upon completion, he said the new facilities will house 1000 prisoners in keeping with international requirements.
“Unlike the holding bay facility here that is not happening at the moment. The facility will be one which is modern in keeping with those specifications that are required,” Elliott added.
According to Elliott, the longstanding issue of overcrowding will also be addressed.
The holding capacity of the Guyana Prison Service (GPS) significantly decreased over the last four years with destruction caused by fires in 2017 and 2020 at the Camp Street and Lusignan prisons, respectively.
On July 12th, 2020, eleven inmates were injured and hundreds more dislocated when prisoners set fire to a dorm at the Lusignan Prison following a drug seizure. The entire dormitory building and a section of the Administrative building were gutted by the fire.
Following the fire at the Camp Street prison in 2017, some 1000 inmates were taken to the Lusignan prison.
The Holding Bay, which was not structurally designed as a prison currently houses some 800 prisoners, Elliott said. There have been frequent escapes from this Holding Bay.
Elliott further noted that the construction is 25 percent completed.
The $1.2B project is expected to be completed by February, 2022. “We are currently at 25 percent completion. So by the end of January, February…the facility should be completed by then,” he said.
Elliott stressed that the GPS has no control over the intake of persons coming from the court system.
“The prison is the last leg of the criminal justice system and of course it is based on the police work that they are doing in terms of crime prevention and detection of crime and once those matter are being placed before the court, of course the magistrate will make a determination if they come to the prison,” Elliott explained.
“Once that decision is made we don’t have any other alternative than to accept those persons while they are here,” he said.
