A fire that ravaged a Honduran prison killing hundreds of inmates housed in an overcrowded facility has raised concern about overcrowding in Her Majesty’s Prison at Northward.
There is overcrowding at the Northward facility in Grand Cayman. However, according to officials at the prison, the situation is not as extreme as that of other countries in the region.
At last count, there were 209 inmates in the Northward facility, while the certified national accommodation of the Her Majesty’s Prison at Northward is 179 prisoners. This represents 17 per cent overcrowding.
According to a report in the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper, the prison in Honduras housed 856 prisoners and had a maximum capacity of 560, which represents 34.6 percent overcrowding.
According to officials at the Northward prison facility, overcrowding there has not reached the level of other prisons in the Caribbean-Central American region, but it is still of immediate concern.
“When compared with some of the other prisons I have visited in the region where there are unreasonable numbers of inmates to a cell, the problem has not reached that level. While there is a need to improve the condition at our facility … the situation is nothing like Honduras,” said Daniel Greaves, deputy director of Her Majesty’s Cayman Islands Prison Service.
Mr. Greaves said a comprehensive plan to build a new facility is in place.
“A new cell block in Northward is being planned by the Portfolio,” said Mr. Greaves, referring to the Portfolio of Internal and External Affairs. “This new facility is a part of efforts to improve the prison and to meet Human Rights Standards.”
Human rights
Cayman’s prison system is facing a November 2013 deadline to bring its facilities into line with standards set down in the Bill of Rights attached to the 2009 Constitution Order.
Part of that plan involves complete separation of adult prisoners and those younger than 18.
Right now, some juvenile prisoners are housed at Northward men’s prison and some adult males are kept at the Eagle House Juvenile Detention facility.
“All are in agreement that placing youth on remand, or after having been sentenced in a unit that is shared with adult offenders due to overcrowding, impacts the youth in a very negative way,” according to a recent report compiled by the government Portfolio of Internal and External Affairs and the Canadian Institute of Public Administration. “Many stakeholders expressed the view that this combination simply provided the young persons requiring protection with an opportunity to form relationships and learn behaviours and attitudes, which would lead them into criminal activity.”
The report further noted a separation should be made between serious youth offenders and those who simply needed protection from “at-risk’ situations, such as a bad home life.
Cayman is constructing a juvenile justice facility in George Town, which will act primarily as a rehabilitative centre. Until that centre is built, other facilities such as the Bonaventure Boys Home and Frances Bodden Girls Home will be maintained to provide similar services.
Related Videos
And because it happened, and made news somewhere else. Someone here has to ask these questions? . Do these people not see these events as a one off incident. And should stop wasting people’s times with these questions.
lowers and shakes head