IN March 2014, JFJ provided an update to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on their 2012 recommendations. The following are excerpts from our statement to the commission:

Police impunity

“In 2012 the United States State Department’s Human Rights Report on Jamaica listed summary executions and corruption as major issues within the Jamaican security forces. One of the principal factors that have motivated the surge in unlawful police killings is the persistence of impunity. It is the view of JFJ that the extremely low number of police shooting cases that actually make it to the criminal courts is testimony to the obstacles to accountability that persist. It is the obligation and the duty of the GOJ to carry out exhaustive and impartial investigations into all allegations of violations of the right to life, to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators and to take effective measures to avoid the continuation of such violations. Some attempts are being made but they are not enough.”

Coroner’s Court

We also discussed the Coroner’s Court and Special Coroner’s Court which the IACHR recommended be adequately staffed to investigate questionable deaths at the hands of State agents. We reported that the recommendation is unfulfilled. We stated:

“Like the rest of the judicial system, it is overburdened, under resourced, painfully slow and unable to effectively complete its mandate. Unfortunately there is a backlog of more than 400 cases and it gets between 80 and 100 cases per year referred to it for hearing. Given that, at its most efficient functioning, the Special Coroner can expect to complete about 60 cases per year, the impossibility of the task facing the Special Coroner is evident.”

Persons deprived of their liberty

We additionally reported on the issue of police lockups and prisons. We stated:

“Police lockups are designed for very short detention periods. However, in Jamaica, these pre-trial detention facilities hold detainees suspected of crimes for up to four or five years in appalling conditions.

The total capacity of our police lockups is just over one thousand seven hundred. Reports from the police indicate that on average there are at least two thousand one hundred citizens in these cells. The situation in prisons is no different. The ideal capacity of adult prisons currently stands at 2,650. However, on average there are three thousand and six hundred inmates in our facilities.

Since 2012, over 300 children have been detained in a police lockup for at least 2 days after being deemed uncontrollable or in need of care and protection. JFJ has learned from the data provided by the Jamaica Constabulary Force that almost 100 per cent of children detained in police lockups spend 2 or more days there, with some spending as many as 30 days.”

As was reported to the IACHR, these situations were created from a set of choices we have made and are immoral, inadequate and they have to change.