Caring for Carrera

According to a report in yesterday’s Newsday, the inmates of the Carrera Island prison have not had access to pipe-borne water due to the breakdown of a pump two weeks ago.

The pump, located near water tank facilities, is supposed to pump water to cell blocks. While officials wait for a replacement part to be sourced and sent to the island, prison officers have decided to allow prisoners to bathe in the sea, at 6 am and again at 4 pm, daily.

These developments call for remedial action in the short-run, but also a look at the longer-term question of the rationale for these particular facilities in the first place.

While sea bathing is undoubtedly therapeutic and potentially lifts the spirits (the point of prison is not just to punish but also to rehabilitate and to encourage self-reflection), it cannot be denied that having prisoners bathe in the sea is a major inconvenience for staff and a potential security risk. It must be a deep source of frustration for officers involved who must supervise the inmates bathing in the open sea.

These developments speak to the overall conditions at prisons nationally. While efforts have been made to improve conditions, the overall system remains cramped and ill-suited to the high levels of criminal conduct in the country.

We have seen official State reports into prison conditions which divulge appalling facts. A High Court judge described one jail as tantamount to a “hell hole.” But things have hit rock bottom when prisoners cannot even have access to one thing needed for life: water.

Inmates are given only one litre of drinking water a day and have not been able to wash their clothes or flush toilets because of the lack of supply.

What is disturbing is the lack of any clear explanation for why a decision to run a water line from Nelson Island to Carrera was apparently dropped some time ago. Was this due to the announced plan by the previous administration to close the facility? President of the Prison Officers Association, Ceron Richards, has stated the information being bandied about is that an entity is paid close to $30,000 a week to supply water on a barge to the island prison.

(At $30,000 a week, the annual cost could be about $1.8 million.) Richards said the budget for 2016/2017 has a $1.5 million allocation to deal with Carrera’s water problem, but to date no remedial action has been taken.

Was the $1.5 million meant to refer to the current arrangements? Was it assumed they would continue? R ichards wants authorities to conduct a feasibility study to ascertain if this cost could be cut by running a line direct from Nelson Island. This is a good idea. But the deeper issue is whether the jail should be relocated altogether.

What are the benefits of the current location and do they outweigh the hazards? In addition to relatively regular escapes, the water problem must now be added to the list of woes. How well can these inmates be reintegrated into society if they are isolated, remote from special programmes and initiatives that may take place on the mainland? Can the current population at Carrera be absorbed by the rest of the system? What has become of plans to build new prison facilities as well as new judicial complexes? Perhaps the State, facing the sad reality that crime levels remain high, has given up altogether on the idea of closing prisons, wherever they are located.

But that is no excuse for inhumane conditions for prisoners and prison officers alike. Another problem is that prison officers have no waiting area and no facilities to board the boat that takes them to Carrera. These matters must all be dealt with urgently, even if the fate of Carrera in the long run is uncertain