The Cayman Islands Prisons Inspection Board has questioned whether it is proper for the government’s prison system to investigate complaints made against its employees, in the wake of a probe involving a strip search of three teenage female inmates at Fairbanks Prison.
In a series of meetings during the past year, board members reviewed the 4 December, 2010, search, which was carried out by guards who were seeking a cell phone and that had “an element of retaliation”, according to the Cayman Islands Complaints Commissioner’s Office.
Officials with the government’s Portfolio of Internal and External Affairs have said that, while certain mistakes were made during the search, the incident did not amount to a serious enough level as to be considered retaliatory.
They also noted that two cell phones were recovered in the prison dorm during the search.
According to minutes of a 25 November meeting, Prison Inspection Board Chairman Arek Joseph said leaving the prison to police itself is “not satisfactory”.
“We will not get an unbiased outcome,” the meeting minutes quoted Mr. Joseph as saying.
During the meeting, Mr. Joseph also said the Cayman Islands Human Rights Commission, as well as the complaints commissioner, had recommended that prison complaints should be handled by an independent investigator.
“[Mr. Joseph] expressed that the principle is that the investigations need to be carried out independently and not by the prison authorities or their colleagues,” the minutes read.
With regard to the portfolio’s internal review of the Fairbanks Prison strip search incident, the board chairman stated: “The finding of the in-house investigation by Mr. {Eric] Bush [then the deputy chief officer of the portfolio] was calculatingly contrary to the complaints commission’s findings. They both agreed that ‘something’ may have happened, but the complaints commissioner’s take on it was that it was an ‘outrageous’ act.”
A representative of Governor Duncan Taylor’s office who also attended the board meeting noted that the complaints commissioner did not recommend any further action than the portfolio had already taken; writing reprimands for two prison officers and requiring them to take “sensitivity training”.
However, Mr. Joseph said it did not appear the complaints commissioner had the “power to punish”, although typically any recommendations made by the commissioner would have to be acted on by government under the Complaints Commissioner Law.
Prison search
Following the search for the cell phone on 4 December, 2010, which is an illegal device to carry in both the male and female prisons, two of the prisoners reported hearing one of the prison guards involved in the search stating “that’s what you get for writing a letter about officers” after the incident was over.
One of the prisoners had written a letter the day before complaining about guards being lazy and allegedly mistreating the Fairbanks inmates.
The prisoners’ account of the guards’ comments is corroborated by statements from two prison officers taken in the course of the government’s review of the incident.
One prison officer stated during her interview: “Yes, [the prison officer] said ‘that’s what you get for writing letters about officers.’ I was in the shower area and heard that.”
A second officer, who was also on the scene, said: “I’m not sure how to put it word-for-word, but my understanding was that the search was brought on by some letters wrote and something was said about that’s what happens when you write letters.”
These statements, taken in the context of what occurred on 4 December, 2010, do not equate to proof that the search was done in retaliation, according to Deputy Governor Franz Manderson.
“It should be noted that the complaint letter was in relation to a policy decision made by prison management and was not directed at any prison officer,” Mr. Manderson wrote in a letter to one of the prisoners father’s in March. “This supports the findings of the investigation.”
In a letter to the OCC disputing its case findings, Deputy Governor Donovan Ebanks put it this way: “Neither the investigation… or any other source that I have heard of, has ever suggested that the individuals who made the inappropriate comments during the search were responsible for the decision to conduct the search.”
Mr. Manderson said during an interview last year that Cayman residents should try to keep this incident in perspective. “We’re not operating a hotel, and we have to enforce the rules of the prison very effectively,” he said at the time. “The public demands that of us.”
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The Portfolio of Internal/External affairs and the Deputy Governors office must be hanging their heads in shame right about now.
Why have a Prison Inspection Board if you snub their recommendations ?
Why have a Complaints Commission if you interfere and attempt to overrule their findings ?
Why not sack prison guards that retaliate against teen girls for writing complaint letters?
Why would the Governor sit back and allow this to go on ?
Even Communist Cuba can do better than this.
Duh!!!
Of course we need ‘objective’ and independent assessments investigations into complaints regarding prison ( police) officers. But sadly, as indicated above there will continue to be a tendency to protect these officers to give that illusion of having the best people upholding our laws and regulations!
Historically it has always been more difficult to sue police prison officers (even teachers) for misconduct. If they are going to receive hat type of protection, shouldn’t we also demand we get the best qualified, experienced persons to fill these posts in the first place?
Take a quick, informal survey, isn’t most of the officers and those responsible for providing objective investigations normally from same group of social/national/cultural group?
If they’re here with the greatest concern being to earn a living, do we really think that with the amount of built-in protection for officers that their ‘people’ will do anything that may take those jobs away?
Or worse, lead to any of them being reprimanded or arrested?
And Lord help anyone of another nationality other than the dominant one if they dare say anything, become employed to increase diversity….they soon learn they must be anti-Caymanian and keep quiet to keep their jobs as well.
So point is, until Deputy Governor/Governor and others are able to put aside fear of upsetting the officers in charge who make up the majority and same nationality, we will never be able to say that they can ‘police’ themselves. Be ready for the anti-colonial arguments and bring in objective persons from the UK and get them to ‘work’ at addressing complaints before they can be convinced that ‘Caymanians don’t like foreigners’ so that the officers are not held to level of accountability necessary.
In is obvious that prison searches, should be done in a most professional manner. The prison officers words should never be unnecessarily exchanged with the prisioners being search, unless necessary to the search. Such words like – Yes, thats what you get for writing letters about officers, I think is very unprofessional.
I think the Complaints Commissioner’s recommendations on reprimanding the officer in question and requiring them to take sensitivity training, is a good recommendation! Proper training and education with dealing with prisoners is needed.
Also, theie recommendation of having an independent search party from the prison staff, is prudent, because it saves the staff from any further allegations of being unfairly searched.
Our government leaders, should take these things into account with upmost importance.