The United Kingdom’s Overseas Territories in the Caribbean are discussing the possibility of creating a combined prison facility for the most violent or high-risk inmates, Cayman government officials said Wednesday.
The general idea is to select a place to house convicts such as murderers, rapists and violent robbers from all over the Caribbean for which each territory would agree to pay a certain percentage of operation and maintenance costs. Cayman’s Premier McKeeva Bush suggested such a plan during a public meeting in West Bay nearly two years ago.
Cayman Islands Governor Duncan Taylor said he expected the topic to come up at the annual meeting of the Overseas Territories Consultative Council later this year.
“One of the issues that we have looked at is related to prisons,” Mr. Taylor said Wednesday. “It’s challenging to operate a high-security prison in a very small community and it’s expensive.
“We have been exploring the possibility of having a regional high-security prison which might house, collectively, some of the most high-risk prisoners from the overseas territories.”
Mr. Taylor admits there is nothing straightforward about such a plan. Presumably, such a facility would have to be housed in one of the handful of British territories remaining in the Caribbean and certain arrangements would have to be made for family visits in accordance with accepted human rights standards.
“It’s not an easy thing to achieve,” he said.
However, the governor said he thinks a regional detention facility for dangerous criminals has a “potentially significant benefit” as well.
“If you consider Northward … [effective rehabilitation] would be a lot easier if the prison guards did not have to worry that they had a number of very high-risk, high-security prisoners there,” Mr. Taylor said. “A lower-to-medium security prison can more readily be more of an educational establishment, if you like, rather than simply a punitive and protective environment.”
The recently released National Crime Reduction Strategy found prisoner rehabilitation strategies at Cayman Islands correctional institutions wanting in several areas; most notably in the area of drug and alcohol counselling, which the report said was not being offered to inmates.
Prisoner rehab programmes also had diminished significantly because of recent budget cuts, the study found.
“Sentence planning, which is at the heart of the rehabilitative process, is not mandatory,” the study found, adding that prisoners were often released on good behaviour without an assessment as to whether their beliefs or attitudes had changed, or whether they had received treatment for an addiction.
“There is a need to review the laws relating to prisoner release to provide incentives for parole so that released prisoners can be monitored and supported for the whole duration of their sentence,” the crime reduction report noted.
Minor offences
Suggestions contained within the crime reduction study also found community service orders – rather than imprisonment – were “perhaps appropriate for offences associated with indolence/apathy/boredom”.
“These orders would be appropriate for minor offences of violence or disorder, some offences of dishonestly, and persistent soft drugs offenders where there is not addiction,” the report stated. “Requiring the offenders to undertake free work in the community … achieves many sentencing aims, rehabilitation, reparation, deterrence and punishment.”
The study suggested employers participate in such work release programmes as well.
The development of halfway houses for recently released prisoners was also recommended in the crime study’s findings.
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Away from family? Sorry if you are innocent. I also note they got a new Justice from the UK. Not to encourage a negative colonial outlook, but we are a society where we can’t arm the police – UK commissioner won’t allow it and disagrees with the civilians being armed. Now, it is a leeway advantage of CONTROL to be able to detain locals that uprise against the government to be detained at a guantanamo bay-like prison.
Of course I detest crime and wish for criminals of gruesome crime to be punished severly for what they do, but this thing about sending them overseas, I can see that it is paving the way for human rights violations.
Be still your bleeding heart Bodden … Concerned with their human rights? What about the human rights violations the worst criminal commits on members of society …. Murder? Rape? Armed Robbery? Fear? Intimidation?
Poor little murderer misses his family? Let’em Skype for a few minutes if their family doesn’t want to or cant visit them on another Caribbean island.
If you murder someone, then you’ve given up a lot of rights in my book.
If you see Cayman, put that type of criminal as far away as possible!
I think this is an amazing idea! And yes, they can skype. I know there are human rights laws that we have to abide by but as far as I am concerned, if you commit a serious crime then you should lose a lot of your rights.
@CayGirl84 – Thats if you have committed a crime??? What if you’re innocent?
And the cost of such a facility – who/how is paying for it???
No! The idea seems strange to me, and I may look like I am a fanatic, but I will be honest: I don’t trust government.
Quote; Of course I detest crime and wish for criminals of gruesome crime to be punished severly for what they do, but this thing about sending them overseas, I can see that it is paving the way for human rights violations.
I’m so sick and tired of hearing about the rights of violent offenders.
As far as I’m concerned. You rape women and kids? You brutalize and kill a child?
You lose all your rights.
Thrown them in a dark basement, take away their entertainment, let ’em rot.
Just send them to Jamaica it nearby for family; it won’t cost too much;and they also know how to deal with these types of criminals.
Can we PLEASE have government statements on this – and all – matters made in simple non-American, non-PR style, non socioligical, multisyllabled jargon – so that we ordinary people can understand what is being said?