NEW PRISON COST RISES BY $50M: Changed proposal sees price more than double for correctional facility

National Security Minister Wayne Munroe. Photo: Austin Fernander

As of Tuesday, May 2, 2023

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

THE Davis administration has expanded its construction plans for the Bahamas Department of Corrections, moving from just a $40m high-medium security facility to what National Security Minister Wayne Munroe said would be a $90m “correctional institution, administrative, housing and medical facility”.

He said the current maximum security section of the prison will close and the medium security section will be converted into a Bahamas Technical & Vocational Institute (BTVI) classroom block for inmates. Meanwhile, the new $100k juvenile facility and the intake/remand section of the prison will remain open.

“(The project) was never scoped,” he said. “What was for $40m is still at $40m. We now have a psychiatric wing and hospital and hospital unit as well as solar and other renewables. This will now eliminate all other housing units except the intake/remand centre. So it is not really high medium but covers all, including women. After the Mental Health Act, you have to provide treatment to house people with mental challenges.”

The state of the prison has been subject to withering criticism over the years.

The 2022 US Human Rights report on The Bahamas said: “Prison conditions were harsh due to overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, poor nutrition, and inadequate medical care. The facility was designed to accommodate 1000 prisoners but was chronically overcrowded. Maximum-security cells for men measured approximately six feet by ten feet and held up to six persons with no mattresses or toilet facilities. Inmates removed human waste by bucket. Prisoners complained of the lack of beds and bedding. Some inmates developed bedsores from lying on bare ground.”

In October, Mr Munroe revealed officials want the BDOC accredited by the American Correctional Association. The monumental accreditation process would allow the institution to operate as a fully functional correctional facility that adheres to international standards and practices. Some of the new construction plans for the prison likely relate to that accreditation process.

Mr Munroe could not say when construction on the new prison areas will begin. He also did not reveal the selected contractor before press time.

“My understanding is that the person awarded (the contract) is sorting out now the financing on it because it’s being done in a fashion that we don’t pay them upfront but they build it,” he said.

“Once they turn it over, we then pay them for the virtual court over eight years and the correctional facility over ten years, and so it’s in their interest to get it completed on time.”

“When it’s completed, of course, now we get to see that you’ve done it correctly while we have an obligation to pay you so the person who engages with the government on those terms would know that holds them also a little bit more accountable than the current circumstance.

“If they deliver you a structure built now, after the warranty period of three or six months has passed, the whole thing could collapse and dog eat lunch, right? But if I’m paying you back something over eight years, ten years, and the whole thing collapsed, then me and you have to talk.”

Yesterday, BDOC added 100 trainee correction officers to the facility.

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BMW 1 year, 4 months ago

Some one gonna get rich

Sickened 1 year, 4 months ago

How about we put this out to tender and look at bids that are not politically connected? I'm pretty sure this can be done (and done properly) for under $20 million.

This $90 million is going to top $120 million once the rest of the cronies get their sub-contracts.

Sickened 1 year, 4 months ago

Another, less cruel option, would be to take all the murderers and rapists out back and shoot them in the head. This would increase bed space very quickly and save us $100 million.

bahamianson 1 year, 4 months ago

Why are we building an edifice that doesn't work? Recidivism is around 60%, that means prison doesn't work. Wake up. Once again, we're are the lawyers like Mr. Munroe that argue to stop hanging because it apparently doesn't work. If we stop hanging because the apparent, sofisticated, progressive democrats amount ourselves think it doesn't work, then we must not build a 60% Recidivism rate prison.

themessenger 1 year, 4 months ago

Can't wait to hear who the preferred contractor is. @sickened, you are right on, publish the list of contractors invited to bid then publish the amounts tendered by each. Don't tell us, just show us. the PLP never issued a contract that wasn't padded breast, boongie and thigh!

mandela 1 year, 4 months ago

Can't wait for this prison to be built. this will be a game changer, at least for a while.

John 1 year, 4 months ago

Again this government is following the misdirection’s of the fallen USA about prison. The US has the highest prison population in the world. Their parole system was introduced to reduce overcrowding and now our ‘mix up’ minister of national wants to introduce parole here. Not as a measure to reduce prison population but to deny inmates who have earned time off for good behavior from getting it. The US intention was to keep as many Black males as possible behind bars to take them away from families from societies and other institutions and make them dysfunctional. So they turned prisons into a lucrative, money making industry, building thousands of prison cells and loading them up with young , Black and Hispanic males. Thousands charged with minor offenses, like simple drug possession. Then when Obama became president, young men became motivated to go to college, to get better paying jobs and to avoid prison. And by the end of Obama’s term, the population in privately operated prisons were reduced by 50 percent. And guess what? A lot of these prisons were owned by the Clintons. Bill and Crooked Hillary. And Crookef Hillary had set a plan to build the prison population back up she had won the presidency. The Feds had already collected information on many young, Black and Hispanic males in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia from sources like Facebook. And Crooked Hillary had planned for the national guard to round up these young men and pile them into prisons. With no specific charges initially but eventually finding charges to put on them. But Crooked Hillary was beaten at the polls and will never, ever, ever see the White House, inside or out, as president. And so America’s prison population continues to decline and dwindle. Here it is increasing simply because the policing system is wrong. The Bahamas adapted a lot of American policing strategies and tactics that were generated specifically towards Black people. The intent was not to meet out justice and protect the innocent, but to ensure that as many as possible end up in prison and behind bars. Remember There was always a war going on. War on drugs, war on terrorism, war on immigration war, war war. And probably in ignorance, The BaHAMAS, formally a peaceful and loving nation, declared war on its young, black men. The casualties continue to pile up.

John 1 year, 4 months ago

Build a prison that the country can afford. One that has the essentials and is secure and moderately comfortable. Then build and add as the demands require such.

John 1 year, 4 months ago

O, and by the way, Trump had also planned to send the National Guard into cities like Chicago and confront the ‘gangs’ in military fashion. After meeting with civil rights leaders, he agreed to stand down, but the violence across the US continues to escalate. The new phonemes are mass shootings ( where four or more are murdered) or accidental shootings, where persons going about their everyday business. Here the assassination style killings still continue.

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