MINISTER without portfolio in the Ministry of National Security, Senator Matthew Samuda says that the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has been pursuing the release of all inmates who should not be locked up in the island’s prisons.

However, Senator Samuda, whose portfolio includes the DCS, says that a significant obstacle in pursuing the release of these inmates remains the inability to locate relatives willing to accept these people back into their families.

He told the Senate last Friday that it is important to locate these relatives, but while the DCS has increased efforts by its probation and aftercare service and given significant assistance in terms of trying to locate relatives, it remains an obstacle to releasing them after they have overstayed their time in the island’s penal services.

“We have very, very limited success, quite frankly. Many of these persons have been there [in correctional centres] longer than they would have been had they gone to trial, as many of the families have moved on,” he told the Senate.

Responding to a question from former Minister of National Security Peter Bunting, Samuda said that the DCS has not pursued a general release programme for these persons detained indefinitely because the courts question their ability to plea. But, a programme to release those who should not have been detained within the system for long periods without trial in the first instance has been implemented.

He said that the current Administration has continued the efforts started by Bunting, during his tenure as minister between 2014 and 2015, to speed up the release of these inmates.

“We have continued with it and we are up to date, but there have been very few early releases,” he said.

He said that the difficulty was also one of the reasons that the DCS decided on the need to establish the new medical centre and infirmary at the Tamarind Farm Adult Correctional Centre in St Catherine, which was opened at the end of October and is already offering specialised care.

The minister’s statement was an update on the ministry’s efforts to improve the DCS’s efforts to increase surveillance of inmates who have been lost in the system, after failing to be tried for offences for which they were charged.

He said that although the DCS had not pursued a release programme for inmates, specifically related to the novel coronavirus pandemic, he had received support from the Ministry of Health and Wellness, which allowed for the procurement of some external services, to ensure that all of the reports needed by the court and the Office of the Governor General to make the determination for release of an inmate are up to date.

– Balford Henry