A detailed assessment of the country's only penal facility has revealed that conditions at Her Majesty's Prison are even more desperate than many officials originally thought and hundreds of inmates are preparing to re-enter society.
What some may find worrying about the Prison Reform Commission report, which was obtained Wednesday by the Bahama Journal, is that over the next five years, 700 of the 1,200 inmates, many of whom are not now engaged in any productive endeavours or constructive rehabilitation programmes, will be released.
The need for proper rehabilitation of inmates is vital, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security Cynthia Pratt has pointed out in the past.
"If you tie a dog and you keep beating him tied, keep beating him, that dog is going to become so vicious that whenever he gets loose, you'll pay," Minister Pratt told the Bahama Journal. "If you put them in there you have to rehabilitate them because they're coming back into society."
The largest percentage of inmates (26 percent) is incarcerated for two to five years and 23 percent for seven to 12 months.
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"Her Majesty's Prison is dirty and plagued with unsanitary conditions and practices," the report states. "For the most part, housing conditions, and other common practices are unfit for human habitation. Cells are cluttered with clothes, graffiti and pornographic photographs."
According to the report, which is expected to be tabled in the House of Assembly next week by Minister Pratt, most of the mechanical systems in the prison, including utilities such as water, lighting and sewerage either do not work or only work sometimes.
"It appears that most inmates are only out of their cells in the Maximum Security area for 15 minutes per day," the report says. "Some inmates indicate that they are not allowed out at all."
Idleness is the norm at the prison and not the exception, commissioners observed. The report says three-fourths of the inmates are not involved in any organized work or school programme.
The Commissioners recommend that the courts be encouraged to reserve prison sentences almost exclusively for dangerous, violent, repeat and sex offenders along with drugs and arms traffickers.
They also pointed out that there is no effective and appropriate inmate classification system, leading to "contamination" of first-time offenders and inmates incarcerated for minor offences.
The report states that many inmates do not wish to return to prison but often resort to criminality as a means of coping with society's indifference and unwillingness to offer a second chance.
According to a Prison Reform Commission Study conducted last year, approximately 98 percent of the inmates are men and 90 percent of them are Bahamian with Bahamian fathers. This discounts a theory held by many Bahamians that a significant amount of crime is committed by illegal immigrants or the descendants of illegal Project Read Bahamas estimates that approximately 70 percent of the prison population is functionally illiterate although 50 percent of the inmates report that they have attained a high school diploma.
Eighty-three percent of male inmates are single, yet 70 percent of them are parents. Nineteen percent of the men are fathers of four to nine children.
As in the general population, the Baptist Faith was dominant among the inmates (35 percent) followed by Catholic (20 percent) and Anglican (10 percent). Eighty-two percent of inmates admitted having attended church on a regular basis as children and 25 percent said that they were reared in a two-parent household while 44 percent stated that they were reared by a single parent.
The survey revealed that illegal drugs played a significant role in the lives of inmates. This was evident as 18 percent of inmates admitted that they had used illegal drugs and or alcohol within minutes of committing their crime; 18 percent within hours and 15 percent within days.
Inmates stated that a change in the administration of the prison was the most important change they would like to see, followed by an increased number of educational programmes, more rehabilitation programmes, healthier food, better medical care, additional beds and other desires.
Among the key recommendations presented in the report are that every able-bodied low escape risk inmate be required to work at some productive endeavour, five days a week either as a student, ember of the institution's general maintenance crew; correctional industry worker; institutional services worker; public facilities worker or day release employee.
The prison is totally reliant on the central government for its revenue and there are very few structured educational or vocational programmes, according to the report from the Prison Reform Commission.
By Candia Dames, The Bahama Journal
