A near two decade-old plan to build a state-of-the-art prison to house 5,000 inmates, as part of efforts to address overcrowding in the island’s correctional facilities, is back on the drawing board after subsequent Administrations failed to make it happen.

Security Minister Peter Bunting said the Government has now begun to explore the possibility of a public/private partnership to build a 6,000-inmate prison.

The correctional facility, which has been on the drawing board since the 1990s, would accommodate medium and high security male and female prisoners and allow for the closure of some of the other prisons.

More than one announcement was made of the then Government’s intention to build the prison, but it never got off the ground.

“The model we are now exploring would be where we get a private operator to build and finance it and we pay for it over 20 years and that way it wouldn’t have a significant fiscal impact,” Bunting told the Observer.

Bunting, unlike his predecessors, did not want to be held to a timeline to get the project off the ground, noting only that it would not come on stream before the next three years.

“I want to make it clear that the Government has not made a commitment at this time,” he said. However, discussions have begun for the fine-tuning of the design, and this is to be followed by a business plan before it is taken to the Cabinet for approval.

Bunting said the plan is to secure the commitment in the upcoming financial year to get the project started, as it would take three years from planning to construction.

In October 2007, the then Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Administration announced that plans were advanced for the construction of a new correctional facility in Amity Hall, St Catherine.

The facility, which was estimated to cost $750 million, was set to accommodate both males and females, with a capacity for about 5,000 beds.

Then minister of state for national security, Senator Arthur Williams, who spoke of the plan — following a tour of correctional institutions, probation and after-care officers in Hanover and Westmoreland — said proposals were being accepted and this stage of the project should be completed by December 4 of that year.

He announced further that construction of the facility should begin by late 2008 and the project period was about three years.

Senator Williams said that on completion, the new facility will help to seriously reduce overcrowding at the St Catherine District Prison, Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, and Fort Augusta, the women’s prison.

But Bunting told the Observer last week that nothing had been done to advance that plan since the announcement was made in 2007.

According to Bunting, all that was done was that two ministry officials were sent abroad to tour correctional facilities.

When contacted on Friday, former Security Minister Dwight Nelson said two attempts were made by the JLP Administration to make this facility a reality. However, it did not get off the ground because of a lack of financing.

Nelson, who said he was speaking from memory since he was not in possession of the relevant files, said the first attempt was when the British Government proposed to finance the building of the facility, which was expected to house at least 800 Jamaican inmates in UK prisons who the British wanted to have returned to Jamaica to serve their sentences.

“I had discussions with them to work out a quid quo pro, where they would finance the facility and we see how best it could accommodate the 800 prisoners they wanted to have returned,” he said.

However, following the discussions with two British Cabinet ministers, Nelson said the plan was shelved as the UK experienced its share of financial constraints caused by the recession.

Between 2010 and 2011, Nelson said, another proposal was placed on the table, this time by both a private British and Jamaican company, but this too was shelved due to the inability of the Jamaican Government to make any financial contribution.

“In all instances the financial aspect created problems because we did not have any money at all to contribute,” he said.

Meanwhile, Bunting said the correctional services should be seen as an integral part of the entire law enforcement system.

“Within two to three years 70 per cent of all prisoners in the system, at any one time, will be released; so it doesn’t make any sense for us to have them in sub-human conditions with no rehabilitation [and] resocialisation activities taking place,” he said.

“Every year, 20 to 25 per cent of that population is going to be released back in society, and so it is in our interest to ensure we don’t release them the same way or worse than they went in,” he added.

The facility, Bunting said, would have a number of advantages as it would utilise modern technology such as CCTVs and a cellphone shielding system, while allowing for adequate provision to be made for training and rehabilitation of inmates.