Injustice of prisoner neglect

I am not surprised by this debacle involving the Chief Justice, former Chief Magistrate and the irrelevant Law Association because I have consistently spoken out about the level of ineptitude and quasi-intelligence in Trinidad and Tobago’s legal profession. I am also not surprised by the motion of no confidence against the CJ because for almost a decade there has been zero progress in the administration of justice, while he jets around the world in style. I have had no confidence in him for years; everyone else is just now waking up to his disastrous tenure.

But my real concern in all of this is the prisoners who continue to languish without voices. My view on how we treat prisoners will never be a popular view in this country where a person is always guilty until proven innocent, but it is the gravest injustice to have men sit around in prison for almost a decade while still legally innocent. And now some of the men who are defendants in the 53 matters that former Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar has left behind, are on the verge of having that time reset as their trials may be heard de novo. This now means that after already burdening the public purse with the expense of incarceration, we have to now turn around and do it a second time.

I know that it is probably the majority of the population who thinks these men deserve to be incarcerated despite not being proven guilty, but how can anyone with a conscience think that it is fair, right, or just to have a man spend a decade in prison without a conviction, only to be eventually released as a result of negligence and incompetence by the police and state prosecutors. And not only spend a decade in prison as a legally innocent man, but actually live in conditions that are much worse than a convict... or even a dog.

Prison was never intended to be a hotel, but the remand prison on the Golden Grove compound and Remand Yard in Port-of- Spain Prison are home to some of the worst human rights violating living conditions on this side of the globe; yet here is where other human beings are being detained until their day in court, whenever that may be.

The remand to convicted ratio in our local prisons is approximately 65:35, while at the same time, there is less housing available for the larger population of remandees. Inevitably, this results in severely overcrowded cells with five to nine (always odd numbers, never even) men crammed into them, along with a couple mattresses and some sheets (most sleep on the cold hard concrete), their thoughts, their belongings, their bucket of excrement (emptied maybe twice a day, but usually once) and the little remaining dignity they may still have.

Still legally innocent, but cut off from the outside world and their families for years; leaving single mothers and distraught children to cope the best way they could...

until the wife/girlfriend moves on after waiting for a year, and who can blame her? But now there’s a man behind bars still legally innocent because he may have been wrongfully arrested or set up by corrupt police officers, yet now he has been abandoned by family, can’t see his children and growing frustrated with “the system” every single day.

Then when there is no access to legal material whatsoever, it is impossible to represent oneself from prison or at the very least have an opportunity to educate oneself enough to decide whether an attorney is providing competent representation.

These prisoners are vulnerable to injustice because they are left to rely solely on whatever information, and in some cases, lies they receive from their legal counsel concerning the delays in their matters.

In any organisation, I determine who gets my respect just by observing whether or not they greet the cleaner in the morning. Similarly, when it comes to government, only those who genuinely show concern for the most disadvantaged members of society get my respect, which explains why I will alw a y s t r e a t e ver yone on e i t he r side of the aisle in our parliam e n t w i t h c o n - tempt.