"Behind the Prison Gates", it might sound like the name of a feature film, but it's actually an intellectual discussion being conducted to the issues of inmates who are housed at the Belize Central Prison.
The matters right now that are being dealt with are issues surrounding the treatment of juveniles, the mentally ill, and those offenders who've been given long-term sentences.
That discussion happened today at the Radisson Fort George Hotel, and it was organized by the Bar Association of Belize and the Death Penalty Project from London. Today, the representatives from both the Bar and the Death Penalty Project told us today that the recommendations being made came from an audit of the prison which was done in August of last year:
Eamon Courtenay - President, Bar Association of Belize
"The purpose of the event is to receive a report which was prepared by Joe Middleton who is a barrister from London and last year Mr. Middleton visited Belize for two weeks and did an audit of the Belize Central Prison called Kolbe. So we are today receiving his report and discussing it with a wide cross section of people and trying to at least start making a plan to addressing some of the issues that have been raised."
Reporter
"Are either of you able to speak about what those issues are?"
Eamon Courtenay - President, Bar Association of Belize
"Some of the issues that have been raised are concerns about persons who are in the prison with mental illness. Persons who are either who have been tried and then can't be sentence because of their mental state and persons who are just waiting trial because they have been found to be unfit to plea and yet they are just sitting in the prison. We will be discussing issue of persons who get very long sentences like what we called lifers, people who are sent to prison for life and cannot have remission of sentence or paroll. We want to discuss the very serious issue of juveniles, where young people for example there is a person who is 14 years old on remand - young people in prison to whom the prison rules apply. In other words there are no special rules for juvenile young people to be treated slightly different."
Reporter
"In comparison with other countries and prisons in other countries how would you compare Belize in terms of maintaining the rights of the people that are in there?"
Parvais Jabbar - Representative, Death Penalty Project
"It depends where you look. If you look at the Caribbean as a region, many of the issues that you find in the Belize system you will find in other Commonwealth Caribbean countries as well. Obviously you can transpose that in parts of Africa and other developing parts of th world, so there are some common problems, there have been some massive and mark improvements in terms of the people system within the prison. Over the last decade the Kolbe Foundation has done I think a very good job in some aspects, there may be others that require further assessment and updating. I think you will find there are common problems in the Caribbean that you will find in Belize and where you will find in other Commonwealth Caribbean jurisdiction."
Members from the Bar, the Judiciary, the Prison Management, and the NGO community and others from civil society were all invited to participate.
Email
Print