Young girls still in adult prisons

No money to refurbish juvenile facilities

BY COREY ROBINSON Sunday Observer staff reporter robinsonc@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, February 19, 2012

JAMAICAN children are still being held in adult prisons and lock-ups almost four years since the horrific fire at the Armadale Juvenile Correctional Centre in St Ann showed gaps in the care and safety of juveniles in the correctional system.

Three national security ministers later and in spite of a removal order from former Prime Minister Bruce Golding, 49 girls at the Fort Augusta Adult Correctional Centre in St Catherine, and seven at the Horizon Adult Remand Centre in Kingston, are still sharing close quarters with hardened criminals — renewing concerns about the dangers of this unholy mixture.

"They practise segregation from the adult prisoners as best as possible, but when the cells are open for recreational time and so on, there is no monitoring and the girls are freely mingling with the adult prisoners," said Diahann Gordon-Harrison, the newly appointed head of the Office of the Children's Advocate.

Gordon-Harrison, formerly a senior director of public prosecutions, officially took up her new mandate in January. At the top of her list of priorities, she said, is lobbying for the removal of the girls from the adult lock-ups, particularly from Fort Augusta, where the behaviour of juvenile wards has reportedly spiralled out of control.

"It is a cause for concern because we do not have any recognised juvenile correctional centres for females. We have for the boys but not for the females, and because of a lack of space and other resources, they [girls] are housed at Fort Augusta in really undesirable conditions," said Gordon-Harrison, noting that the practice is in violation of local and international standards.

According to the authorities, all the males who were among approximately 100 children being held in adult lock-ups in 2009 have been relocated, primarily to the newly refurbished Metcalf Street juvenile facility in Kingston. Officially opened last year, the $168-million institution is capable of housing 208 male wards. It currently houses 159s.

"But what about the girls?" asked Gordon-Harrison.

In 2009, following the fire at Armadale in St Ann, in which seven female juvenile wards died, then prime minister Bruce Golding first ordered that all minors be removed from such facilities. However, a year later in November 2010, the Observer reported that the just over 100 children still being held in police lock-ups islandwide, actually represented an almost 100 per cent increase since Golding gave the instructions.

Following the 32-day enquiry into the Armadale tragedy — also ordered by Golding, the Department of Corrections devised a programme that was supposed to see the renovation of three facilities which would be used to house juvenile wards of the state.

But even up to the time of Golding's address at the opening ceremony of the Metcalfe Street juvenile facility last June, the situation had changed little. He said then that by the end of July, no children on remand, including the 101 already in the system, would be in police lockups, a situation that was in conflict with the Child Care and Protection Act, as well as international conventions which Jamaica had signed.

That July deadline was missed, however, and is now stalled indefinitely while the Government scrambles to find money to execute the plans.

Lieutenant Colonel Sean Prendergast, the commissioner of corrections, says his hands are tied until the funding is found.

"There is a facility in Copse, Hanover, and there is a plan to renovate that to be a boys' correctional centre. We have a Rio Cobre facility (in St Catherine), which, once the Copse facility is finished, we will move the boys from Rio Cobre and renovate that. That will then become a correctional facility for girls," he explained.

"And then the old Stoney Hill facility is being earmarked to be the female remand centre. But we will have to do some renovation to those properties," he added, noting that the Government and the security ministry are still exploring options to fund these initiatives.

He said that until those facilities are opened, the department had no alternative but to continue housing the girls in adult correctional facilities.

Prendergast declined to reveal the budget for the proposed plan or disclose a new timeline within which renovation of the other premises would be concluded.

In the meantime, he downplayed Gordon-Harrison's concerns about juvenile girls mixing with adult female convicts at Fort Augusta, and that some of them were becoming more hostile due to the exposure.

"There are some unavoidable interactions because they (the wards) have dorms that are close by. They may pass each other in the passage, for instance, going to the dining area, and they might meet up while going to classes, but they do not have joint classes with the adults; classes are on a shift system," he said.

"We have always had a problem with the juvenile girls and I don't think we have had an increase, but we do have issues. And I will not say at this point that it is because they are being housed with adults. We have the same issues at other female all-juvenile facilities," he explained. He cited the Diamond Crest facility in St Elizabeth as one example where the female wards exhibit serious behavioural problems.

Prendergast noted the Department of Correctional Services is not responsible for juveniles in police lock-ups. Laura Plunkett, director of offender management in the Ministry of National Security, told the Sunday Observer that a total of 40 boys are being held in police lock-ups islandwide.

They are being held there, she said, until their court cases are heard and the judge rules that they be transferred to the Metcalf Street facility. She also said wards at the Metcalf Street facility are also housed in police lock-ups when they are taken to the respective parishes in which they committed offences for trial. She stressed though, that efforts have been made to ensure that the length of time the male wards spend at these facilities is minimal.

Plunkett also could not state the budget for the proposed refurbishing and relocation plan that would end the housing of juveniles in adult correctional facilities, but admitted that the initiatives were being hampered because of budget limitations.

She said notwithstanding that the plans are on hold, the ministry is exploring options to improve the turnaround time of cases involving children remanded in custody.

"The ministry is contemplating the establishment of a court with all-island jurisdiction at Metcalf Street," she said.

None of these measures and reassurances were satisfactory to Dr Carolyn Gomes, head of human rights lobby group, Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ), however.

For Dr Gomes, these were merely delay tactics being used by the authorities, who she said continue to turn a blind eye to the plight of the suffering children.

"Not one child who is in these lock-ups should be there, not one. This thing has been an issue for far too long," she said.

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Young girls still in adult prisons