A timebomb waiting to explode

THE Port-of-Spain State Prison is a time bomb, waiting to explode and when it does, it will happen smack in the middle of the capital. The conditions at the city jail are so terrible, prisoners are jam-packed into cells and the toilets are just ten feet away from the kitchen which supplies the meals for the 800-odd prisoners. This was the sad story revealed to the media yesterday by a team of attorneys representing the Law Association who paid a visit to the city jail last Friday. The team also visited the Maximum Security Prison and the Women’s Prison at Arouca. After six months of begging and pleading, Minister of National Security Martin Joseph granted permission for the attorneys to visit the various penal institutions. The visits also followed a similar one, two months ago, by the British-based Amnesty International.

Yesterday, attorneys Larry Lalla, Natasha Lamy-Ramsden and Om Lalla hosted a media conference to reveal their findings. Larry Lalla said, “What we saw was an outrage, a scandal and a serious indictment against our society, modern Trinidad and Tobago. It is a serious indictment against every Government, past and present who allowed this to happen.” Lamy-Ramsden, who visited the A1 and B1 blocks of the city jail, responded, “I was aghast with what I saw. There were about 20 cells which were in complete darkness at midday. There were no lights, the corridor was very narrow, I could not see the men’s faces, they were sticking out cups with urine and bags for the toilet. There were cockroaches on the wall which some of them collected in their cups.”

Lamy-Ramsden pointed out that these prisoners were on remand... not convicted as yet. “They are innocent until proven guilty. I have two sons, they could end up in the wrong place at the wrong time and be in that situation in the prison. There were five men in a cell, the stench was horrendous, there was lack of ventilation. If someone does something to a prisoner in the night, he can’t tell who did it because it is so dark.” Om Lalla, who represented the Criminal Bar Association, said he had complaints from clients about prison conditions but he never thought it was so serious. He said some cells had 14 prisoners. “How do they sleep? They are in a 10 X 10 cell, they spend 23 hours a day there. The prison was designed in the 17th century to hold 250 prisoners, it is now holding more than 800.

Two years ago, the city prison held 1,400 prisoners.” He said prison conditions had been raised in legal proceedings where the death penalty was concerned. “It would seem that Death Row prisoners have better conditions than those who are kept on remand.” Larry Lalla, who chaired the media briefing, said the kitchen where the meals are prepared was in a terrible state. “The floors are black with dirt. The ceiling has grease inches thick. It is black and dripping, and I heard it has been so for many years. The toilets are just ten feet away and all the waste from the prisoners is dumped there.” He asked, “I wonder what our health inspectors will say to that?” Larry Lalla said there was a cell with 15 prisoners being kept there because they could not pay maintenance to the courts. “They are not there for violent crimes, but they are subjected to the harshest of conditions at the prisons.”

Lamy-Ramsden told the media that she met one of the prisoners who had to cover all the holes in his face to prevent the cockroaches from invading him. She said even foreigners who are awaiting deportation, are part of the inhumane conditions. She learnt from a colleague that a prisoner, who had been subjected to these conditions, killed himself when he heard that a warrant was again obtained for his arrest. Larry Lalla said the Law Association was not taking the situation lightly as some members plan to institute legal action on behalf of some of the prisoners. “Crime is rampant in our society. Criminals need to be punished, but this goes beyond punishment,” he added. The members of the Law Association plan to visit the Carrera Island prison and the Golden Grove prison at Arouca in the near future.