Amnesty International: TT prisons ‘appalling’

In its 2004 report it spoke of abuse in prison and abuse by police.

"Conditions in places of detention continued to cause grave concern... A task force on prison reform in 2003 failed to address the vast majority of problems."

Amnesty said that after the Government granted them unrestricted access to the major prisons, at Golden Grove and Port-of-Spain Prisons they witnessed "appalling conditions."

"Both suffered from severe overcrowding and prisoners were forced to defecate and urinate into containers and then place the human waste in buckets outside the cells." Cells of three metres by three metres, said the report, contained up to 17 prisoners. "Violence in prisons persisted." The report said Kern Phillips was stabbed to death by another prisoner and Ignatius Owen died from a beating by inmates, both men being held at Golden Grove.

The AI report criticised abuses by police.

"Torture and ill-treatment by police continued to be reported. At least 24 people were shot dead by police." Amnesty singled out the shootings of Kevin Cato where a police officer has been charged with murder, and of Galene Bonadie whose death is the subject of an inquest.

Amnesty mentioned the death penalty. It said the Privy Council had okayed the mandatory death penalty for murder, saying it does not violate our National Constitution. "The mandatory death penalty therefore continues to be the only sentence available for those convicted of murder." The report said 86 prisoners had death sentences commuted because the Privy Council in this case had overturned its previous ruling against a mandatory death penalty from which the 86 had previously expected to benefit.

The report said that three people were sentenced to death in 2004 but no executions have been carried out.

A quick look at the AI reports of other countries chosen at random — UK, France, Venezuela, and Germany — revealed that they had problems which made those of Trinidad and Tobago pale in comparison.