Prisons

More Anguilla news available on Hansard.  As a result of another Parliamentary Question, Minister Chris Bryant has given us some more interesting news about Anguilla.  We learn that the Anguilla prison is presently holding nearly twice as many prisoners as it was originally built to house.  How many prisoners to a cell is that?  Is this statistic not a recipe for increasing prison violence?

Overseas Territory	Certified normal accommodation	Current population
Anguilla	35	58
BVI	98	120
Cayman Islands	145	216
Montserrat	52	15
Turks & Caicos	102	108, rising shortly to 150

More interesting, perhaps, is the note to the Turks and Caicos Islands figures.  How does Bryant know that the prison population is shortly to be increased by nearly 39% to a total of 150? 

And will the increase consist of politicians or merely of lawyers?

The real concern for us is that Anguilla is the only Overseas Territory in the West Indies to have its prison so over-filled.  Unless a new prison is built, I would suggest that the Magistrates should be using alternative means of sentencing to an increasing extent.  Failure to do so will risk prison rapes, the spread of HIV, and more burnings. 

In order to further reduce the risk of uncontrollable prison violence, the Governor should be actively considering releasing significant numbers of long-term, non-violent prisoners whose conduct has indicated remorse and who are not thought to represent a continuing threat to society.

PS:  24 October 2009 - Hansard has, without apology, altered the webpage linked to above to correct the footnote. It now appears attached to "Certified normal accommodation" instead of "Current population".  They could, at least, have said sorry for having originally mislead us.