Senior pastor at Hope Gospel Assembly in St Andrew Reverend Peter Garth has frowned upon a proposal contained in a National Correctional Services Policy to grant inmates conjugal visits, declaring among other things that “prison should not be some sort of State-funded Playboy mansion”.

The proposed National Correctional Services Policy for Jamaica, tabled as a White Paper in the House of Representatives in May, said efforts should be made to explore an appropriate mechanism for the introduction of conjugal visits, where there would be designated periods in which an offender client (prison inmate) is allowed to be in private with their legal spouse — wife or husband.

The visit allows contact, including sexual relations, between an offender client and a visitor. The key aims of conjugal visits include preserving an offender client’s family ties, promoting the offender client’s reintegration into society on release, curbing recidivism, and lessening violence within the correctional centre,” the White Paper outlined.

But the clergyman, after perusing the proposal, said he was left with serious doubts.

“I looked at it to see what other countries are saying, what they have done; I don’t see anything great in terms of research done, but I object,” Rev Garth told the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday.

“It would be a moral objection for me, and if you speak to any of the umbrella church groups we would all agree on [the question of] is it husband and wife only or any significant other?” he argued.

He said a strong argument in favour of conjugal visits is the matter of family values.

“It is a fact that conjugal visits can help to preserve the marital relationship. Many would certainly agree that it is a fundamental building block in society. It is a fact that when a person is sentenced to 15/20 years in prison and his wife is out there, the person who is incarcerated suffers as well as his partner, so there is that kind of strong argument for it. They say it will help in terms of rehabilitation. Some people talk about the emotional and sexual needs of both the person who is incarcerated and their spouse.

“There are the arguments that denying these needs can be inhumane. The human rights people, they are going to step into the ring and say if you allow a man to bring in his wife what happens to the person who wants to bring in his lover and that person is gay? Obviously we couldn’t allow that because of the presence of the buggery law,” he opined.

“To me, it is too lenient, and it can easily be seen as rewarding criminal behaviour. As far as Government is concerned, prison should not be some sort of State-funded Playboy mansion. Prison is not a Playboy mansion,” insisted Garth, who has served as head of several church umbrella groups.

“It is definitely State-funded, he gets his meals, he gets whatever he wants because in Jamaica a lot of underhanded things take place and I know this because I’ve talked to individuals who have been there for years and they come out and they talk about the privileges they had,” the outspoken clergyman told the Observer.

He said in one particular case he is familiar with, an individual who had a particular skill would grant favours to prison workers in exchange for several hours of freedom outside prison walls.

“They would let him out on a weekend and he would go back after. So if you are going to do it, especially for serious crimes, it sends a wrong signal,” he argued.

“It also involves the matter of supervision; what about STIs? And a lot of conflicts can arise. If you grant conjugal visits it can be seen as a privilege that’s not deserved. I think the arguments on my side for us not getting involved are stronger than the arguments in favour of,” he added.

The proposal contained in the White Paper is not novel.

In 2017, then National Security Minister Robert Montague mooted the possibility.

“I am determined and insistent that we are going to start conjugal visits and some persons ask me why, but we must treat with [incarcerated individuals] in a humane way. A lot of us [say] that we are Christians, but true Christianity is when you do for the least amongst us, so we are working on that,” Montague said at the time.

He was making a presentation at the Jamaica 55 Diaspora Conference at Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.

The current proposed policy seeks to expand ways of allowing an incarcerated individual to keep in contact with their family by implementing secure video visiting and phone call programmes within the prisons.

It also seeks to facilitate, as far as possible, the important parent and child relationship by establishing improved visitation facilities and procedures.

“The Government recognises that, as far as possible, every effort should be made not to cause a child to suffer unduly because of the incarceration of either of their parents,” the White Paper says.

The proposal follows a November 2020 Cabinet decision to develop a comprehensive Offender Management Policy for the correctional services based on what was believed to be a high level of recidivism.

An estimated average annual recidivism rate of 41 per cent was recorded in Jamaica between 2016 and 2021.

It says the policy is designed to reduce the level of recidivism with a whole-of-society approach.

The policy has, among its major aims: Addressing the overcrowding and poor infrastructure of the island’s prisons, reducing the gang influence inside correctional institutions, reducing contraband and corruption inside the institutions, and providing more support for ex-prisoners to be reintegrated into the society, including support for their employment.

The White Paper also proposes the development of a visitors’ guide that provides basic information on the rules and regulations that govern visits through a variety of media on support services for families and signposting to specialist services.

It further proposes revised visitation policies in prisons to encourage and reinforce stable, consistent and scheduled in-person visits, and create a warm and suitable environment for friends and family members to interact with offender clients.

Other proposals include collaboration between the Ministry of Health and the Department of Correctional Services in restructuring the health-care system within the prisons with the aim of making it similar to that available in the community, and recruit and retain qualified medical professionals — including general practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, and substance abuse specialists — to work in the prisons.

The proposals contained in the White Paper are expected to be implemented over the next five years.