| By Leon SuseranFormer Senior Superintendent of Prisons, Mr. Poshanand Tahal recently expressed concerns about the current state of the prison system,Bengals Jersey Cheap, especially as it relates to overcrowding and the need for the female prisoners at New Amsterdam to be re-located to a separate facility.During an interview with Kaieteur News, Tahal who spent over 34 years in the Guyana Prison Service (GPS), acting as Director of Prisons at some point or another, and who served for quite a number of years at the New Amsterdam Prisons, related some of his burning concerns.“The overcrowding—the New Amsterdam Prison is very small and to hold 100 prisoners in a very cramped position is not easy. I understand they got some plan to build at Lusignan. I don’t know how that would facilitate movement. The government did suggest somewhere at Leonora for a female prison. I don’t know the land but it was mooted then. I don’t know if they have that in thoughts anymore. Georgetown is terrible, terribly overcrowded,” he said.Tahal stated that when he left the system,Wholesale Nike Baseball Jerseys, the remand population at New Amsterdam was roughly 48 per cent of the total male population and about 50 per cent of the total female population. This amount he said varies from time to time.Poshanand TahalThe females need space to operate and space to get involved of activities “and so the Officer-in-Charge can only dream of activities to get them involved in.”“To do gardening or training,Wholesale MLB Jerseys, they have to come outside or even play games—it’s not always the best opportunities for them.”Tahal noted that the large garden space that was used in the past to do large- scale farming at the New Amsterdam Prisons was taken away to build the new New Amsterdam Hospital and the only plot of land that remains today is the one that is owned and leased by the Presbyterian Church in the area.The plan then was to look for a piece of land along the East Bank of Berbice to do farming and a proposal was prepared, “but nothing was done about that. The land aback of the Berbice High School (BHS), the church has taken it back.”“Every industry that prisons become involved in, you have to have somebody at the helm who has a drive to see the thing continuously remain successful,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, and I think sometimes, you know, a lot of young cadets come in and some of them get the impression—‘Oh I didn’t come as an Agriculturist—I come as an administrative officer and chicken rearing is not my business’—I get that kind of impression and they need to be much more wide in their dreams,” the former Deputy Prison Director stated.And the main essence of prison hasn’t been removed from the law—that is separation and segregation. According to Tahal, it is difficult for any prison officer to practice separation and segregation (separate the remands from the convicted; the hardcore form the soft-core) in Guyana. He related that what currently obtains in the system is not good enough; whereby the only separation is females from males in New Amsterdam, “and that’s not good.”He believes the powers that be need to understand “that not every prisoner can be trained and retrained.”“They got the hard core who will never change. For instance,http://www.authenticjerseysnfl.us.com/Authentic-Nike-Baltimore-Ravens-Football-Jerseys/, they got a prisoner whose name is Jack, who has served over 40 prison sentences,Wholesale Shoes Cheap, who tell you plainly ‘Boss man, I ain’t got no other home—I go on the road and I coming back….just keep me bed, don’t give it away’. What will we do with him?” Tahal questioned.The retired prison officer also believes that government should be utilizing prison labour. He said that they should have prisoners work for incentives by doing work and performing jobs in the communities in which they serve jail time, “given the right security”.“Let them earn for the food and the things the government giving them—it’s plenty money we spending on them—let them give back to the society,Cheap MLB Gear, they can do that.” |
