By Mohamed Juma Jalloh
According to the nightwatch Newspaper investigations, recent reforms intended to transform the Sierra Leone Prisons System to Correctional Services have failed to bring much meaningful improvement.
Among all public institutions, perhaps the one that often falls off the radar of public scrutiny is the prisons. More often than not the public’s concentration is on the excesses of the traditional security institutions. That is, the police and military, ignoring the fact that there is a plethora of activities in the prisons that leave a lot to be desired.
In 2014, with the enactment of the Criminal Procedure Act, the raison d`etre was to develop and improve standards in the Prisons in a similar fashion to what obtains internationally according to best practice.
Let’s start by facing reality. Many people are of the view that the prisons is not meant for them, ignoring the reality that few people go through life without coming into conflict with the law.
Many do perish in solitary confinement based on false allegations like Prophet Joseph (Yusuf), some on concocted and politically motivated charges, like former President Stevens, who spent the Independence Day celebrations at the Pademba Road prisons.
He was falsely accused by political opponents of planning to disrupt the Independence Day celebrations.
Citing more recent examples, in the personalities of Dr. Alie Kabbah, who is the current Foreign Affairs Minister, and Lahai Lawrence Lehma, the SLPP spokesman, it has been proved that no man is too important to enter Pademba Road Correctional Centre.
Official figures, countrywide, show that the current inmate number is 4,426. Despite that exponential number, the system is supposed to only accommodate 1,800 in all 19 prisons.
Some prisons need urgent upgrading, as they did not meet the standards of prisons in a modern era, like the ones in Kenema, Bo and Pujehun, which human right groups have best described as slave fortresses.
The situation is particularly hopeless in the male prisons at Pademba Road in Freetown, where there is poor sanitation, inadequate space and insufficient ventilation for inmates. This is a facility built in 1914, during the colonial era, to house 224 prisoners, but the facility now holds 2,156 inmates.
In some cells meant for only 2 people, measuring 6 by 9 feet, they now hold up to 12 or more prisoners. The situation sometimes appears as fishes packed in a tin of sardine.
“Because of lack of space, sometimes you seat throughout the night until a “boat” (a system in prison that redistributes inmates to a less congested block) comes and take you to another block,” Mohamed Kamara said.
This is a young man who was held by the police for loitering.
Inmates defecate on buckets, which serve as a breeding ground for miscellaneous diseases. Access to water is also a challenge, because in some blocks pipe running water flows only two times a week.
The situation is catastrophic for inmates whose relatives never send them food and have to depend entirely on the prisons produced food called “Agboro”. In all, the hope for rehabilitation and reintegration, which are enshrined in the mission statement of the correctional service, gets even more difficult.
“We are aware of the challenges and we are working to surmount them, but mind you, changes from prisons to corrections, is not a day`s job. It is a process,” Oppito Jimmy, Corrections PRO, said.
In 2010, a number of high security prisoners, including those convicted for murder and robbery with aggravation, made a spectacular escape by firing a pistol through the main gate.
The Minister of Internal Affairs, Suluku Bockarie, paid an unannounced visit to the facility last week. That visit prompted reactions from inmates who describe the harsh prison conditions. Some inmates have spent up to ten years without the judiciary bringing their matter to conclusion.
An inmate, by the name of Kabbah, said he had appeared in court for more than 100 times and yet his case has not been concluded.
The Pademba Road prison is also exporting its poor sanitation outside the streets of Freetown. Residents along Pademba Road have persistently complained of recurrent disease infested water that has an unbearable stench overflowing from the prisons drainage, which poses severe health risks to pedestrians.
“In order to solve the problem, we need the collaborative efforts of the Freetown City Council and the Sierra Leone Roads Authority to construct a drainage that will connect with the Samba gutter,” Opitto Jimmy said.
New laws, introduced by the correctional service in 2014, sought to provide an alternative to incarceration, a major reason for overcrowding.
An antiquated justice sector, unendingly bathing in corruption, coupled with stiff custodial penalties for even minor offences and lengthy periods of remand, put enormous pressure on the country`s prisons.
“There must be non-custodial sentences for traffic offences and other misdemeanors like loitering and frequency”, Mambu Feika, Prisons Watch Director, pointed out.
The Criminal Procedure Act of 2014 also regulated criminal trials introducing several mechanisms intended to simplify and speed up the process as well as provide alternatives to prisons, such as community service, suspended terms and probation.
The new laws incorporated international standards by eliminating penalties, including corporal punishment, prolonged periods of remand, hard labour and solitary confinement.
Some of these provisions have not been put into practice for years, but the step towards corrections was seen as a symbolic move to reform the sector.
It also introduced measures to reduce preliminary investigations procedures which contributed to delays in trial and subsequent overcrowding.
But despite these efforts the country still has stiff penalties for even minor offences and misdemeanors.
Inmates are sent to prisons that could instead be given suspended sentences, fines or community service.
For instance, misdemeanors, such as civil defamation and libel, can carry a prison sentence of up to three years.
Other criminal procedures, where judges and magistrates hold wide discretionary powers, have also compounded the problem, coupled with the consistent issuance of summons, the unjustifiable refusal of granting bail, the discrepancy in prosecuting high profile criminals versus petty criminals and the disparities in giving out sentences.
All too often, minors, who are detained for petty crimes, end up serving prison terms, further exposing them to violence and recidivist or career criminals; in the end they are offered little hope for a better life after release.
According to the 2016 report by Human Rights Watch in Sierra Leone, prison conditions remain below minimum standards because of overcrowding, poor hygiene and a lack of medical attention. Prison cells often lack proper electricity, no bedding, proper ventilation and mosquito nets. All cells are ridden with bedbugs and other blood sucking parasites and the odour coming from the cells is offensive.
“Seizure of their liberty is enough. By subjecting them to inhuman conditions is a clear human right violation,” Nyakeh Minah Esq., a human rights lawyer, noted.
The majority of prisons, which were built during the colonial era, are densely crowded, without the possibility for expansion.
When the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights visited the Bo Correctional Center in July 2018, the conditions they saw were appalling.
“I have never felt devastated like today, seeing my fellow human beings in such inhuman conditions. There are inmates who have stayed here for quite a long time without trial,” Chairman of the Committee, Lawyer Ngavao, stated.
The Bo Prisons is also densely crowded with 35 to 38 inmates subjected to a cell, except for one cell referred to as priviledge cell, which have 14 inmates.
The correctional service strategic plan factored that most of the prisons should be relocated so as to provide space for inmates, recreational facilities and accommodation for staff and their families.
“Overcrowding in correctional services can lead to serious health problems,” Father George, of Don BoscoFambul, noted.
A number of NGOs, such as Don BoscoFambul, Prisons Watch Sierra Leone, Life by Design, Caritas Freetown and Legal Aid Board, have fought for years to reduce inmates’ numbers and have invariably provided psycho-social support for inmates coupled with food, medicines, referral operations at tertiary hospitals and equipment to enhance skills training.
Notwithstanding the support these organizations render, they often face challenges, including lack of political will and scarcity of resources to reform the prisons.
According to HRW, the Bureau of Prisons received only 3000 or half dollars per day for food per inmate.
Furthermore, the failure of the government to pay food vendors, as contractors, who are sometimes political party agents or Lebanese at the Pademba Road correctional facility, resulted in severe year round food shortages and consequent malnutrition issues, creating a situation where the bones of some inmates are visibly counted.
The skeleton bound or living dead prisoners are referred to as ‘kendehleh,’ and their bodies are covered with contagious skin diseases.
Several allegations of trafficking of prohibited substances, torture and sodomy, perpetrated by prisons officers who exploit prisoners, do abound.
“We have a zero tolerance policy to sodomy, torture and trafficking,” Opitto Jimmy, Correctional PRO, again.