CHAKA TEETH SEH PRISON DEAL IS NOT A GIFT

SECURITY Minister Peter Bunting says Britain’s £25 million towards the construction of a new prison in Jamaica is a conditional offer.

“… It’s not a gift. They have been very clear that this substantial contribution towards the building of the new prison is conditional upon us passing legislation, successfully negotiating a prisoner transfer agreement, and then making it operational,” Bunting told reporters at yesterday’s Jamaica House press briefing.

However, despite the raging debate, it could take up to a year before the country knows if Britain will give Jamaica the promised £25 million to build the new penal facility, Bunting indicated yesterday.

He said all that time may be needed for Parliament to finish its consultations and decide whether or not to allow Britain to send up to 300 Jamaican convicts back here to finish their sentences. The Government, however, is expected to use its parliamentary majority to push the matter through the House.

“It may or may not occur. The key element is whether Parliament will approve the framework legislation. We know it is a sensitive issue for the society, so we would want to allow as much participation as possible, so that would take a few months,” said the security minister.

If the Government does not agree to this one-way prisoner exchange programme Britain could withdraw its £$25-million offer to help build a new prison, which the Jamaican Government insists that the country desperately needs.

The minister told the House of Representatives on Tuesday that a special select committee is to be set up to receive submissions on this issue from technical experts and all interested parties, including civil society and the diaspora. He said the resulting report could either recommend abandoning the proposal due to the strong sentiments around the issue, or to proceed with legislation and the negotiation on the prisoner transfer agreement.

Although maintaining that the announcement made by British Prime Minister David Cameron last week had given the impression that an agreement was in place, Bunting said the arrangement could benefit both sides.

“We are not going to sign something that at the end of the day would represent a net transfer of financial responsibility from the UK to Jamaica. There can be a win-win situation in this because it costs about £6,000 to keep a prisoner in a Jamaican facility versus £25,000 in a UK facility, so there is sufficient scope for there to be a win-win if and when we get to negotiating the prisoner transfer agreement itself,” he said.

Government, in August this year, signed a contract for a new block at the Tamarind Farm prison in St Catherine, but there was not indication then that negotiations with Britain for financing of a new prison had started.

Bunting pointed out at the time that the majority of the prisoners at the Tower Street and St Catherine maximum security prisons were not hardened criminals and should be in low-risk facilities. He said a new prison was an absolute necessity in order to ease the overcrowding in the system.

Asked then what the plan was for the Tower Street and St Catherine prisons, he said there was no hope of rehabilitation for either due to the condition they were in, stating: “Our strategy involves both expanding the capacity of the medium security facilities — Tamarind Farm and Richmond — and then the medium-term objective is to build a new maximum-security facility, not with the combined capacity of what we have now between the two maximum security facilities. We will be looking at building a new facility more in the 1,500 to 2,000 range to replace those two facilities, knowing that once Tamarind Farm is expanded, more of the inmates who are received will go directly to Tamarind Farm,” he outlined.

Bunting further said that: “We are looking to put it adjacent to Tamarind Farm because that was originally quite a large property. It’s not a hundred per cent settled, but that’s what we see as most feasible. We have also looked at the possibility of going to a greenfield site somewhere else, but the infrastructure cost … would create another set of challenges”.

But, at yesterday’s briefing, the minister contended that: “I was asked whether we were going to rehabilitate Tower Street and Spanish Town; in response I said it would not make any sense, given the condition and the age of those facilities, to attempt any significant rehabilitation and (that) what we needed was a new prison; I was clarifying then, but I did not announce two months ago a new prison, I said what we ‘need’ was a new prison”.

In his 2013/2014 sectoral debate presentation Bunting had said that a submission was to be made to Cabinet during the second quarter of that fiscal year regarding a new but smaller (1,500-2,000 inmate) maximum-security facility.

The Government, meanwhile, maintains that talks with Britain on a prison deal have been ongoing for the better part of a decade.