Prison authorities are desperately trying to cope with the high influx of remand prisoners and officials are claiming that they are at their wits’ end to deal with the situation.With more than 30 persons remanded to prison on a daily basis, prison authorities have had to find ways and means to ensure their safety and at the same time ensure that the prison is not overwhelmed, a situation that could have severe consequences such as riots and possible breakouts.Director of Prisons,Wholesale Adidas Hockey Jerseys, Dale ErskineIt has been observed that despite pleadings from attorneys, a significant number of persons are remanded by magistrates,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, apparently without considering the status of the Georgetown Prisons remand facility, which is designed to hold no more than 200 prisoners at a time.At present there are 596 remand prisoners whose cases are before the Magistrates’ Courts. There is a further 74 who have been committed to stand trial in the High Court for non bailable offences such as murder.The prison population at the Georgetown facility currently stands at 1,China Jerseys,084 inmates, which is way above the stipulated prison figure of 630.In an invited comment yesterday,Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale, Director of Prisons,Wholesale Jerseys 2017, Dale Erskine said that his department is mandated to deal with the high numbers despite the constraints that such a situation presents.“We have to deal with the situation as best we can. We’re trying,” Erskine told Kaieteur News.He explained that remand prisoners do have other opportunities to secure bail seven days after their first remand.However, this newspaper understands there are inmates who have been on remand for bailable offences for as long as two years since they cannot come up with the means to secure their bail.According to Erskine, despite the high remand rate, the prison has been stable for the past few months, since persons are being released at the same time as those who are remanded.However, the release does not equally match the figure of those remanded to prison.“The men come in here and we have to work with them. There are more coming in than going out but if the warrant comes we have to deal with them (prisoners); that’s our responsibility, we can’t send them away,” the Director of Prisons said.The administration has already announced that there is no immediate intention to build a new penal facility, despite the recommendations of several studies done of Guyana’s prison system.The situation has resulted in several incidents of unrest which have been testing the prison security system.While the non-granting of bail is not meant to be a punitive matter, lawyers have contended that prosecutors use frivolous arguments to object to bail.In most cases,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, prosecutors use the non-legal argument that the prevalence of an offence is enough to refuse an accused bail.One attorney pointed out that magistrates should only be concerned with the assumption that a person will not return to stand trial before remanding them.
