Four prisoners serving life sentences are living in a hostel, Finance Committee was told.
The four ‘lifers’ – three Caymanians and one foreigner – have been downgraded to low risk over the more than 18 years they have been serving sentences for murder, Prison Director Dwight Scott told the committee on Wednesday.
He also said the four, who had been living in the hostel at the prison for more than four years, were checked on regularly and were locked down at night.
But nevertheless the revelation, made as an item for approval of $733,705 for prisoner rehabilitation programmes was being considered, caused disquiet amongst committee members.
Sister Islands MLA Julianna O’Connor-Connolly said it appeared that after parliament and judges had done their part, that administration could neutralise their intent.
She said she found it appalling that administration could make such decisions.
Mr. Scott said the prisoners were not living a life of fancy and were subject to strict security measures.
Chief Secretary George McCarthy said it would appear from their behaviour that the prisoners in question had shown themselves to be a negligible risk.
He said if the foreign prisoner was sent back to where he came from it would probably mean giving him his freedom and would create a certain level of inequity.
Mr. McCarthy suggested that Finance Committee was not the appropriate forum to deal with the matter and it would have to be further looked at.
Mr. Scott told the committee that Northward Prison was one of the strictest, with prisoners in their cells more than 22 hours each day.
He said the problem of prisoners having illegal cell phones in jail was a worldwide one.
Many ways of stopping such contraband getting into jail were tried but prisoners had shown creativity and some cell phones had been thrown over the fence from the outside.
He said a number of steps, including the increased use of CCTV, had been taken to deal with the problem.
In answer to a question from Mrs. O’Connor-Connolly, Mr. McCarthy gave an assurance that there had been no discussions about having a prison on Cayman Brac and that the matter had not been considered.
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