The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Department of Corrections is holding about 1,700 people in a facility designed for 900, with authorities deporting nearly 500 foreign nationals this year and referring scores of Bahamians for possible early release as they try to ease chronic overcrowding.

Commissioner of Corrections Doan Cleare disclosed the figures yesterday during a media tour of the Fox Hill facility, where he also said construction has begun on the long-awaited new correctional complex.

He said the department has been working with the Prerogative of Mercy Board to reduce the population, including by releasing and deporting foreign nationals held in connection with immigration matters.

Nearly 500 foreign nationals have been deported through the process this year, according to Mr Cleare, while close to 100 remained in custody at the time of the interview.

The department has also referred elderly and seriously ill Bahamian residents, along with some long-serving prisoners considered a low risk to society, to the board for possible early release.

Mr Cleare said about 150 to nearly 200 Bahamians have been considered for early release this year, although only a fraction of the department’s recommendations may ultimately be approved.

“Now, the Prerogative Board of Mercy is very stringent,” he said. “You know, my department may send 50 or 60 per month, and the Prerogative Board of Mercy may only approve ten.”

Some of those being recommended have spent decades behind bars and exhausted the rehabilitation programmes available to them, he said.

“There are persons who were up there for 40 years, some for 45 years,” Mr Cleare said, “so we are, and there's nothing else the department can do for them. They have been in every course, they have been in every programme, and we deem them to be a non-risk factor to society.”

Mr Cleare also argued that prison resources should primarily be reserved for violent and aggressive offenders rather than people accused of minor offences or those suffering from mental illness.

“The little hawkers and the little vagrants, you know, most of them are mentally ill persons, and they shouldn't be channelled to us,” he said. “They should be more or less channelled towards Sandilands.”

Meanwhile, construction of the new correctional complex has begun, with the project being carried out in two phases.

The first phase involves building a new court complex containing an Appeals Court, Supreme Court and Magistrates’ courts, as well as 20 modular cells already purchased from the United States.

Once that work is completed, the existing remand court is expected to be demolished, and construction of the new prison will begin.

Commissioner Cleare said the complex will comprise 17 buildings rather than one large structure and that engineering work and drawings have already been completed.

Contractors have estimated construction of the new prison will take between 18 and 24 months, he said.

The existing facility has struggled with overcrowding for years. Government planning documents have said its maximum-security unit, built in the early 1950s for 244 inmates, has at times held about 800.

Commissioner Cleare said he also wants prisoners to be trained and paid to work on construction of the new complex.

He said his initial request to the government was for about 100 residents to participate in the project, with the work used as an opportunity to provide skills training rather than simply prison labour.

“I ask the government of The Bahamas to at least let us try to enlist about 100 residents to assist in the construction,” he said, “and for them not to be said that they are working, but for them to be trained as they work and to be paid us to pay the salary.”