The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe, QC, said yesterday that officials are investigating another suspected COVID-19 case at the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services.

Mr Munroe said the suspected case is a prisoner who was quarantined in a cell with Prescott Smith, an inmate who reportedly also tested positive for COVID-19.

Two other prisoners were also reportedly confined in the cell with Mr Smith despite his positive status, prompting the decision to send the Corrections Commissioner Charles Murphy on administrative leave last week.

Yesterday, Mr Munroe said: “I am told that there was one case. We are now waiting (on) the PCR test of one of the inmates who was confined with Prescott Smith who appeared symptomatic when we toured. We’re awaiting that test.”

Mr Munroe spoke to reporters after touring facilities at the Royal Bahamas Police Force headquarters, including the RBPF’s real crime time centre, forensic lab and Paul Farquharson Conference Centre.

He also visited the Royal Bahamas Defence Force Coral Harbour Base to tour facilities there.

Yesterday, Mr Munroe pledged to advocate for additional crime resources, technological improvements and other critical upgrades needed to assist both agencies in their policing efforts.

He also committed to full implementation of the MARCO Alert and a sexual offenders registry once all issues of concern have been addressed.

“I don’t intend to come here to tell people how to do their jobs,” Mr Munroe said. “My job is to listen to the professionals and listen to what they say and their resource needs and then my job as an advocate, and I have a lot of training in that over the last 31 years, I’m to advocate for what the forces need to do their job properly.

“We have a very simple mantra that I have sought to bring to the ministry. We recruit the best, we end up with the best and we have to give the best their resources that they need.”

Last week, the newly appointed minister toured certain sections of the correctional facility where he said he observed several health and safety issues of concern.

“I went to certain parts of the prison and speaking with some of the officers in charge of the intake, medium, maximum and the female prison, it didn’t always line up with what my briefing was. I saw health and safety issues that I’ve directed the two deputy commissioners to address,” Mr Munroe added.

“All of our institutions must be safe for the public servants, public officers who must use them and for the other stakeholders like the inmates who come into contact with them.

“I received a quick briefing yesterday (Sunday) by Acting Commissioner (Doan) Cleare and it’s a very simple thing that he was directed to do and what he is doing which is to comply with what Dr Johnson, the medical officer in the prison, says should be happening so I’m happy to say that we will have disinfecting of the prison every day as opposed to when somebody supposedly is infected which was a free standing recommendation by Dr Johnson.”

He said officials are also discussing how to implement rapid antigen testing for new prisoners to mitigate further virus spread. COVID-19 vaccinations are also set to begin at BDCS on Thursday.

“We’ll have to see how we can get rapid antigen testing of new persons coming into the prison to have some sort of risk analysis, something that was not instituted even though rapid antigen test kits aren’t very expensive,” he also said. “What they prevent is something that can be catastrophic and so I got a quick brief from Acting Commissioner Cleare and I’m happy to see that we’re now moving in the direction as this government is committed to follow the science and to listen to what the medical people say.”

Earlier this year, former National Security Minister Marvin Dames told reporters he and his team wanted to construct a new modern medium security prison able to accommodate up to 500 inmates in an effort to bring about reform to the prison system.

Asked yesterday if it was a plan he would consider following up on, Mr Munroe said: “I’ve been briefed on some work about the construction; I think it’s a new medium security facility. I’ve been quite open to say that I was a member of the parole and re-entry committee that reported in 2017 – whose report was put on a shelf (and) not worked on.

“The report spoke to one of the main objectives being to reduce the volume of imprisonment that The Bahamas undertakes. We imprison people at I think ten times the rate of all of our neighbours and that would affect the need for prison facilities so to my view it should be a dual approach: one addressing who you send to prison, why you send them to prison and the length of time you send them to prison and improving the facilities that are there and the rehabilitative services that are there and the correction services that are there because they will come out.”

Since Mr Munroe’s appointment to office, several top-ranking officials, who had been sidelined by the previous administration, have since returned to their respective posts before reassignment.

Among those officers are Clayton Fernander, Ken Strachan and Leamond Deleveaux.

Asked to respond to speculation about a shake-up in command structure in view of the appointments, Mr Munroe replied: “Well, you can ask the commissioner of police about that. He runs the police force. He produces a policing plan. He has certain protections in the law and I don’t intend, as I said after my swearing in (ceremony), to interfere.”