By Mustapha Kamara Jnr
The original idea about prison was a place meant to punish offenders by seizing their freedom for a short or a very long time depending on the crime and its corresponding punishment.
The trend globally though appears to be changing. In fact in most developed world it has, long ago. The emphasis now is on correctional system, rather than the retaliatory system, as it were. This means the prison is no longer a place where a convict can just go and serve a jail term in conditions akin to that of a Nazy concentration camp or even worse, but one where they can as well be equipped with skills and receive counseling that would prevent them from committing crimes or getting into another trouble when they are out. In other words, to help rehabilitates the mind of the convict.
The Sierra Leone government recently adopted this trend, when it changed the name of its penal system from prisons to correctional services. But is it all just about name changing?
Conditions of many prisoners who have come out of the renamed Pademba Road Correctional Center suggest nothing good about the place. Most of them look malnourished with rashes all over their bodies. The reason for that is hard to tell if you have not been in there.
Ramsey Noah, not his real name, was released from Pademba late last month. It`s just two days after his release. He looks sickly and malnourished.
Ramsy says Pademba Road was his worst ever experience and never wishes to return there. He says while food was served twice daily, the meals were hardly fit for human consumption.
It was either not properly cooked or it was utterly tasteless, he says.
“Look at me Sam. Look at my condition. Is this the same me you know some months back?” he tells Politico.
Ramsey got his name from his lover-boy lifestyle, a reference to the Nollywood actor by the same name who is well known for depicting lover boy roles.
The Sierra Leonean Ramsey though found his way to prison when he beat up his girl friend. He served over two months. On his release, they reconciled.
But it seems the young man will have a long way to go before he washes off the scars of prison life. His once nice looking body is covered with thick, black spots. He says it`s the mark of insects bite.
The prisoners in there call them ‘Karamba,’ he tells Politico.
He says the insects look like bed bugs but bite harder and cause more pain than any other insect he has known.
Ramsey occupied a small jail cell with few beds with about ten other people. They use the same room as toilet, he explains.
Ramsey says he would rather die than return to that condition.
Unpleasant smell
The Sierra Leone Correctional Services authorities did not approve our request to visit the inside of the prison. But when you get a little closer to the vicinity of the prison premises, you will have some idea about what goes on in there.
Residents around the area and worshipers at the Winners Chapel International Church, which is just a street away from the prison, complain of constant unpleasant smell from the prisons, which some believe has got to do with sanitary issues.
“The smell of toilet waste comes from the direction of the prison in the morning hours between 8am to 9am,” says a 26-year old student who spoke to Politico on condition of anonymity.
This student wants the prison facility relocated to an isolated place.
Mohamed Opito Jimmy, the Public Relations officer for the Sierra Leone Correctional centers, admits that the institution is faced with serious challenges over the years. One of these, he says, is overcrowding.
According to official statistics, there are 17 correctional centers across the country with a total of over 3076 inmates.
Pademba Road, the most populated of them all, was meant to house about 300 inmates but now has over 1000. And Jimmy says most of these are on remand.
He blames delay in the justice system for the overcrowding in the prisons.
“There were more inmates that were awaiting trials than those that have already been convicted,” he says.
But Jimmy says despite the congestion, they try to ensure conduciveness.
They also provide skills training to only convicted inmates, which means only a minority of the over 1000 inmates are on any training, he says.
“We have toilets but we also have bucket so that the prisoners would be able to defecate at night. We do so to prevent them from coming out of their cells and also to avoid situations in which prisoners would attempt to escape,” he says.
NGO intervention
A recent report by Amnesty International also partially blames the judiciary for the overcrowding in the country`s prisons.
The ‘Amnesty Report 2014/2015’ highlights lack of resources as hindering the justice delivery system, causing constant adjournments, indictment delays, and shortage of magistrates also contributing to lengthy pre-trial detention.
Prisons Watch, a local non-governmental human rights organization that monitors conditions in prisons across the country, has provided legal aid to facilitate the release of some prisoners as a way of decongesting the prisons.
Mambu Feika, its executive director, says they have been able to release over two hundred prisoners on bail from five prisons in Bo, Kenema, Makeni, Porto Loko and in the Western Urban Area through this scheme.
The United Nations Development Pogramme is funding the scheme.
“Over the past ten weeks, with our intervention, we have been able to release about two hundred prisoners on bail, making the numbers drop significantly from over 1,500 prisoners to 1,300 prisoners from five prisons,“ he says.
The six-month project started in November last year and at the time of this interview Feika said they were looking at the possibility of an extension.
“We are worried about the conditions of prisoners at the Pademba Road Correctional Centre especially now that the country is approaching the raining season,” he says.
He says as an organization they observed over the years that it is during the raining season that more people were imprisoned for committing criminal offences and majority of these are youth within the ages of 15 and 35.
Feika says the government should initiate new policies that will enable it to provide more jobs that will engage the minds of youths to prevent them from involving in criminal activities that will lead them to prison.
(C) Politico 18/06/15
