OPPOSITION spokesman on national security, Derrick Smith, said that he is not convinced that the Government is serious about building a new maximum-security prison.

Smith noted that Security Minister Peter Bunting had informed the House of Representatives in May that due to the high cost of building a national maximum-security prison, estimated to cost some $10 billion, the Government was looking at constructing a smaller facility to reduce the overcrowding at the Tower Street and St Catherine Adult Correctional facilities in 18 months’ time.

“Whenever they have broken ground and construction starts, that’s when I will take it seriously,” Smith said, reacting to numerous announcements dating back to 1996 about a new national maximum-security facility.

The most recent indication of the facility becoming closer to reality was made by Bunting at a press conference on Wednesday where he gave a three- to five-year timeline. The minister, who was speaking at the signing of a $164-million contract with M&M Jamaica Limited, for a two-storey 304-room dormitory at the Tamarind Farm, reiterated that the long talked about new facility would only house about 1,500 to 2,000 inmates.

He said while the eventual plan is to abandon the decrepit Tower Street and St Catherine District Adult correctional centres, it was not with a view to placing all 3,000 or so inmates that the two prisons now hold into the new facility. Bunting emphasised that the expansion of Tamarind Farm was all a part of the plan to move low-risk prisoners out of maximum security. Richmond Farm prison would also take some of the low-risk convicts.

He said the lumping of hardened criminals with those who are incarcerated for lesser crimes and terms should not continue, pointing out that 70 per cent of persons sent into the correctional system last year had sentences of one year or less, and 28 per cent were repeat offenders. He further pointed out that many of these young men are given limited opportunities for rehabilitation, and are confined to cramped, overcrowded cells with no modern sanitary conveniences for 18 hours per day.

“The vast majority of our inmates would be classified as medium- or low-risk inmates…so it’s really unnecessary and undesirable to keep those persons in a maximum-security facility. We are overcrowded, and they are not ideal for rehabilitation purposes, given the fact that they are seventeenth and nineteenth century facilities,” he said.

Bunting had told the House of Representatives, in his sectoral presentation in May, that the Government had made provisions for further transformation of the prison system to ensure that the rehabilitation of inmates is in line with international standards.

He explained that, in partnership with the UK Government, a five-year strategic plan has been developed to transform the correctional services, with the objectives being to strengthen the system of rehabilitation; reduce reoffending; and comply with international human rights standards.

The national security minister said the Ministry of Justice was seeking to reduce the range of offences that create a criminal record, and reduce the period for expunging records, but more was needed to be done.