Warders in prison

The imposition of stiffer penalties for the smuggling of contraband into Jamaica’s penal institutions is not likely to dent the inflow of illegal items as correctional officers are sometimes forced to comply with the demands of dons while others are compromised because they live in crime dens, a prison official has said.

Chairman of the Jamaica Federation of Corrections, Arlington Turner, said while he welcomes last week’s passage of amendments to the Corrections Act, inclusive of hefty fines, he is not optimistic that the legislation will deliver the desired results.

Correctional officers, said Turner, play a major role in breaching the security rules of prisons, whether through the direct smuggling of contraband or by aiding and abetting the families of inmates in beating the system.

“What do you do when this man comes to you and tells you that you have to do this or else your family will be burnt out, or you will have to leave the community?” Turner said in a Glean er interview on Tuesday.

“... Some of them are forced, some of them cannot say no, as it relates to the space where they live, so you have to understand, but the authorities will not do these kinds of investigations. They are happy to hold on to a correctional officer, to have him arrested and send it on the media to say they caught John Brown because he has been carrying in contraband inside the prison.”

Stark socio-economic realities make correctional officers particularly vulnerable to coercion by violence producers, especially in low-income communities where they live virtually as neighbours.

Special consideration should be made by the authorities about accommodations for correctional officers, said the Jamaica Federation of Corrections boss.

“How can I live in an area where you have so-called dons running these areas? They’re in control. I have seen it where officers are caught and end up in prison with the same person who operates within their own communities. How did the officer reach there?” he asked.

The Corrections (Amendment Act) 2021 was passed last Friday in the Senate and will see, among other things, correctional services workers who are convicted facing a maximum fine of up to $3 million or a sentence not exceeding three years, or both.

This reflects a jump from a fine of $500 or a maximum six-month sentence, while conviction in the Home Circuit Court will result in a fine or maximum imprisonment of up to five years, or both.

Senator Matthew Samuda, minister without portfolio in the Ministry of National Security, believes that the majority of correctional officers do not engage in smuggling.

That view is corroborated by Turner, who said a small percentage of the island’s 2,600 correctional officers were complicit in security breaches.

“My experience with correctional officers is that they are good, hard-working, patriotic Jamaicans. We do have a few bad apples, as you have in any organisation, but I think the bad apples have given the corrections service a bad name,” Samuda told The Gleaner on Tuesday.

Turner has also cited meagre wages as one of the factors tempting wayward warders to engage in corruption.

Warders get a basic gross annual salary of $857,723 and an allowance of $354,795.

“They don’t get enough for what they do. They don’t get a liveable salary, so you are paid today and tomorrow you are out of pocket. That doesn’t make sense,” said Turner.

Samuda, however, expressed confidence that the implementation of the bill will help to stem the flow of contraband into prisons. He said that the previous penalties did not match the severity of the offence.

“Now that we have the law, we will be investing in the technology and infrastructure that we need to change the entranceways to our space. We will be putting in significantly greater monitoring as well as cell phone blockers where we need to have those, which isn’t necessarily suitable in all locations,” Samuda told The Gleaner.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com