CARING for prisoners in correctional facilities is not a waste of taxpayers’ money, but instead a national good, as put by Jamaica’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn, and Joyce Stone, deputy commissioner of corrections at the Department of Correctional Services (DCS).

Both women spoke to the Jamaica Observer after presenting at a symposium on prison reform hosted by Improved Access to Justice in the Caribbean (IMPACT), from July 5 to 6 at the St Kitts Marriot Resort in Basseterre.

Llewellyn lamented that there isn’t any great effort by political representatives to change what Jamaicans already think of prisoners.

“You cannot relegate them to the scrap heap of society. Them being incarcerated is them paying their debt to society… they should be able to reintegrate into society. You cannot wield great power without understanding the humanity of the very person that you’re going to be seeking to get a conviction [for].”

Llewellyn said the public should understand that but argued that “there’s an elephant in the room”.

“It’s a political issue. The people are going to say, ‘Why you taking up taxpayer money to give criminal, when we need it for education, we need it for this, we need it to fix roads?’ That’s what they are going to say. And how many of us have politicians in our country who are prepared to face down the people and risk their political capital?

“There’s no energy from the people to do it, but then, on the other hand, they have to educate the people to show why it is that for the soul of the country, it really should be done.”

In addition, Stone said the “whole purpose” of rehabilitating inmates and prison reform is about public safety.

“I think that many times we miss that point. How much are we prepared for our own safety? Most, if not all of the inmates will return to society soon and if they are not reformed, then we are no more safer than we are. So, I think that is the point to push. It is all about public safety. Our safety — the safety of our children and the generations to come,” she said, noting that as it relates to prison reform locally, there is special attention on human capital development for both staff and inmates, improvement of infrastructure, policy reform with amendments to the Corrections Act and integration of technology for more accountability within prisons.

“The inmates will be back into the society; they will be your neighbours, they will be your church brothers and church sisters, they will be the bus drivers. We have to remain hopeful. We can never, ever give up. As prison practitioners, our hearts have to be in it,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

To that, Llewellyn interjected, “But it will have to be sold to the public.”

“The allegation almost becomes fact. It’s hard sometimes for persons not to buy into what the average man on the street will feel, that listen. ‘These people have killed people and these people are now on the scrap heap of humanity. Why should we take taxpayers’ dollars and feed them?’ Yes, we have to feed them, but we don’t have to make it like a hotel,” Llewellyn said.

Antigua and Barbuda’s Acting Superintendent of Prison Jermaine Anthony underscored the fact that getting the public to understand the need for proper treatment of prisoners also includes a change in language.

“At Her Majesty’s prison, we call them cells housing units, and we refer to them as residents instead of inmates or prisoners,” he explained.

Dr Janeille Matthews, lecturer in law at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus, agreed, saying “the colonial air of prison is still operating in the region”.

Matthews said not only in the physical structure of the facilities, but also, “In the way that we speak about criminal justice. It’s the language that we use, the processes, and the day-to-day functioning of the criminal justice system.”

Meanwhile, Stone told the Observer that poor conditions for inmates will also produce a poor condition for correctional staff.

“In terms of health and nutrition, inmates are fed three meals daily. This is one of the biggest challenge; the inmates complain about meals a lot. We have a medical unit and we have doctors assigned to every institution every day, and external medical care is done at hospitals and clinics mostly.”

Financial support is also given to inmates.

“It’s really not a lot to boast about. It is in the form of a rehabilitation grant to operate a small business. The condition is that the inmate must serve at least one year of their sentence and towards the end of the sentence or when the inmate is released, the inmate must have a viable project which is reviewed by the commission and a care officer works along with them to make sure that it can be viable to some extent,” she explained.

“They are given a grant of $50,000 to start the business and it is supervised at least for a year by the probation after-care officer.”

Describing the treatment of prisoners in the region as “far away from proper”, Justice Jacob Wit, a judge at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), said a judge who does criminal cases should not do so without visiting the prisons in his or her country very often.

“Judges, in order to be able to send people to prison, have to know where they are sending these people to, and they have to be aware of the situation in prisons. It has been clear to me that in many cases, the prison has done what it can, but the financial means are not very elaborate and so, there is a lot which is lacking,” he reasoned.

Wit pointed to the Nelson Mandela rules which were adopted in 1955 and updated in 2015. The rules are based on an obligation to treat all prisoners with respect for their inherent dignity and value as human beings, and to prohibit torture and other forms of ill-treatment.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) ensured that the revised rules reflected international human rights standards adopted since the 1950s. As a result, the Mandela rules provide states with detailed guidelines for protecting the rights of persons deprived of their liberty, from pre-trial detainees to sentenced prisoners.

“If we treat prisoners as animals, we cannot expect them, once they have served their time, to behave as saints. Probably, they will behave as they have been treated. Of course, it doesn’t mean that they should be treated softly, but they have to be treated correctly, as responsible persons because that they will be when the leave the prison,” he said, noting that correctional facilities should offer prisoners education, vocational training and work to prepare them for their life after prison.

Samuel Tapley Seaton, governor general of St Kitts and Nevis, said correctional facilities exist to punish and rehabilitate criminals for committing crimes.

“It’s to punish by way of incarceration, but coupled with rehabilitation to enable inmates, upon their release, to be equipped to return and contribute meaningfully by way of employment and a display of acquired skills,” said Seaton.

Further, noting that Jamaica’s recidivism rate for 2021 was 27 per cent, Stone made recommendations that she believes could carry Jamaica further towards prison reform if implemented.

“There is need for a forensic mental hospital, strategic collaboration among crime-fighting partners, more careful selection of correctional staff, its own disciplinary board — rather than reliance on civilian authority,” she said.

Prison, she continued, is about, “Reforming offenders and make it less likely that they will commit further criminal acts when released, punishment for those who have committed serious crimes, to encourage the personal reform of those who are incarcerated and to protect the public from those were sent to prison. I have come to accept that all persons can be rehabilitated, but not all will avail themselves to rehabilitation.”