Saint Lucia, Guyana, and Suriname have agreed to cooperate on matters regarding the management of their prisons.
Senior prison officers from the three countries are attending the Guyana Prison Service (GPS) Annual Senior Officers’ Conference.
Assistant Director of Corrections Chris Felix is representing Saint Lucia.
Felix told the state-owned Guyana Chronicle that throughout the conference, they discussed and developed recommendations for solutions to prevalent issues in Saint Lucia, Suriname, and Guyana prisons.
He told the Guyana publication that talks regarding exchange programmes have already occurred as the three nations seek to learn from each other.
The Saint Lucia prison official planned to take home implementable development ideas from his trip to Guyana.
The Guyana Prison Service (GPS) comprises five facilities and its Georgetown headquarters.
There are 2,240 men and more than 60 women in prisons across Guyana.
On the other hand, Saint Lucia built its Bordelais Correctional Facility (BCF) in 2003, with a capacity of 500 inmates.
However, as of March 3, 2024, there were 592 inmates at the facility, including over 300 remand prisoners.
One of the concerns regarding inmates is recidivism, the tendency of a convicted criminal to re-offend.
Last year, Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre announced that Saint Lucia would launch a programme to help former BCF inmates get into business ventures.
Pierre said the Saint Lucia Social Development Fund (SSDF) would oversee the initiative.
( From left: Chris Felix-Assistant Director For Administration-Saint Lucia, Nicklon Elliot Director of Prisons-Guyana and Joyce Pane-Aflfaisi Commissioner of Prisons-Suriname. Photo courtesy Guyana’s Department of Public Information)
The remand numbers are rather high….bar certain serious violent crime , history of breaching bail, public safety…bail should be granted.
There needs to be a clear policy in our prison is it a warehousing facility, a recruitment centre for criminals or a function for rehabilitation ….rehabilitation has cost implications.
What is the population of Guyana compared to St. Lucia? since they have, and will be exporting Crude Oil which will make them exceedingly rich in the near future, I would expect them to need an increase in Manpower, such we and other Islands can supply. Gone are the days when our men who really wanted to work, were eager to go to Curacao and Aruba and made quite a living for themselves. Today we see our Prison choke full with young men wasting their lives away. Would these three Guyana nations, Dutch, French and British be willing to accept about 100 of our Inmates each, to rehabilitate, train and eventually obtain jobs after serving their term in prison?