Stand Up for Jamaica calls for rehabilitation to take priority in new prison talks

Human rights organisation Stand up for Jamaica (SUFJ) is calling for the Government for rehabilitation to take top priority in the construction of new prison.

In a media release, Executive Director for SUFJ, Carla Gullotta, says while the country does need a new prison, greater emphasis must be placed on rehabilitation to ensure that all the necessary systems and resources are in place to facilitate the reform of all prisoners.

"Otherwise it is a missing goal," she says.

Gullotta is raising concern about the condition of the two main prisons, Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre and St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre, which have also exceeded maximum capacity.

"Rehabilitation is the key solution to sending back better people to society, but the degrading infrastructure at the prison facilities and the lack of space is not conducive towards that effort,"  Gullotta says.

"Two on a sponge, two on a hammock.... They are locked in between 3:00 p.m. to 9:30 in the morning. There is no access to bathrooms, latrines anything so the inmates have to have their own little bucket in the cell where they urinate and defecate in front of everybody. It is really a health hazard and a humiliation," she says.

She is urging the government and the public not place this issue on the back burner and calling for the government to rethink its policy on not hiring inmates with a criminal record.

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