BASSETERRE, St Kitts – The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has referred to a majority of inmates now entering correctional facilities over the last couple of years as ultra-high risk, as their brazen and barbaric criminality poses a deleterious threat to national security.

“There is a new category of inmates that I want to refer to as the ultra-high risk. Thirty-six years ago when I joined corrections, it was a different breed of inmates than those that exist now. There’s a reduction of low-risk inmates coming into the institutions,” Joyce Stone, deputy commissioner of corrections at the DCS, said during a presentation at a Symposium on Prison Reform hosted by Improved Access (IMPACT) to Justice in the Caribbean, from July 5 to 6 at the St Kitts Marriott Resort here.

With Jamaica’s prison population at 3,559 as at July 2, 2022, with 2,400 uniformed officers, the DCS maintain that the extra violent inmates are a growing concern.

“These are inmates that are considered to be of a very high risk and a threat to national security. This group is a growing, emerging trend in Jamaica,” Stone continued, while pointing to the fact that despite a reduction in the prison population “over the last five to eight years, the number of ultra-high risk prisoners continue to proliferate,” Stone added.

Two of the islands institutions are currently over capacity — Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre’s ideal capacity is 850 inmates and the present population is 1,736.

At the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre, the ideal capacity is 850 and there is a current population of 934.

The South Camp Adult Correctional Centre is 51 prisoners short of its capacity — 99 of 150.

Stone said longer sentences are being given to criminals, so inevitably, the time at the facilities are elongated. “With the death penalty still on the books, but not being used really, persons are getting up to 60 years. We have persons in our institutions for up to 60 years.”

But Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn refused to comment on the fact that many Jamaicans have been calling for the death penalty, as crime continues to frustrate the nation.

“I am not going to weigh in on that debate,” she told the Jamaica Observer. “I have always refrained from that debate. I don’t believe it is my place. It is the policy that is still on the books when last I checked, and we are creatures of the law. As to whether it is right or it is not right, I have never gotten into that debate and I’m not going to do it now,” Llewellyn continued.

The death penalty debate, as put by the DPP, became a major topic in public discourse once again in late June, when her office indicated that it will be seeking the death penalty for 23-year-old Rushane Barnett who is suspected of killing 31-year-old Kimesha Wright and her four children in Clarendon on June 21.

Barnett is accused of slashing the throats of Wright; her daughters: 15-year-old Kimanda Smith, 10-year-old Shara-Lee Smith, five-year-old Rafaella Smith; and her 23-month-old son, Kishawn Henry.

Meanwhile, Commissioner of Police Major Antony Anderson also shied away from the discourse. Responding to a question by the Sunday Observer on Tuesday during his monthly press conference, Anderson said that while some people may be deserving of the death penalty, he preferred to stay out of the debate.

Furthermore, Stone said when the profile of inmates is explored, it is deplorable.

“They are uneducated, unskilled, from low socio-economic backgrounds and with very little social support. And so, we try to encourage our adult inmates to at least learn to read and write, sign their names and be able to count. However, there are some that are exposed to the Caribbean Secondary Education Council (CSEC) to the first degree level.”

Llewellyn, however, said Jamaica was making progress.

“We are doing a lot. The present minister, Delroy Chuck, is really into restorative justice, dispute resolution — because Jamaicans have a violence problem. We may be vibrant in one way, but we are very aggressive,” she said.

“We are having quite a bit of domestic murders where intimate partner violence, violence between families, and also with the gangs — when you check it out, one person dissed another and they then kill A, and then you have reprisals and it just goes on and on.

Llewellyn added that it’s an inability in terms of physical analysis and an inability to resolve conflict.

“That is part of our problem,” she added.