A former prisoner is calling for the rehabilitation of prison infrastructure to make them friendlier for the disabled.

Hugh Goode, who served five years behind bars for the stabbing death of his common law wife in 2014 said the only issue he had with the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre where he served his time, was the lack of infrastructure for persons with disabilities. Goode has rickets, a bone disease which causes bone deformities and severe curvature of the legs, which affects his ability to walk swiftly and balance.

Subsequently, he made an impassioned plea to the Ministry of National Security to offer more support to the Department of Correctional Services to improve its facilities, especially provisions for persons living with disabilities.

“Many times the head of the facility and correctional officers go into their pockets to get us things. If the head did get the resource where he could do it, he would. I have seen him do a lot for the facility and even for persons with disability, where I know if he had more, he would do more,” Goode said.

The former inmate further painted a picture of the grim reality faced within the penal system. Despite rehabilitative programmes and opportunities for personal development, prison is no bed of roses, even for the disabled. “The hospital section is about 22 feet of steps up ina di air. You have people up there with disability who have to come down this fleet of stairs and if you see the stairs, you can slip. You have people up there with one hand, people who have had strokes and have to take those stairs to go up. For persons with disability just provide a little stair lift at the hospital section to take them up as safety. Put a space where the wheelchair can go up on in there,” he said.

In addition, Goode said the bathroom system is in need of “great retrofitting” to cater to disabled prisoners as acrobatic skills are required to relieve one’s self.

“You have to climb up on it then tilt, then get a bucket to flush it. A man with a disability can’t manage, and if you were suppose to sit on a toilet, you have to go by the hospital section where there are about two domestic toilets for the whole hospital population,” he said. “At each section they need a lower toilet for people with disabilities, instead of having to jump up on the toilet or stoop. In there kinda steel float so if you don’t know how you are walking, as a man with a disability you will drop.”

Goode who said his time behind bars has made him into a better man, is set to take up a scholarship in January to pursue an Associate of Arts Degree in Renewable Energy at the Jamaica Theological Seminary.