Inmates on working strike,
demand to meet Minister
POINTE BLANCHE--The inmates association at the Pointe Blanche prison have been on strike since Thursday, demanding to speak to Justice Minister David Dick who has been in St. Maarten since Thursday.
Association President Sherwin Hodge told The Daily Herald the inmates had forwarded a letter stating their grievances on September 19, but hadn’t heard from the Minister since.
“The strike means that the inmates are not doing any work in prison. We are not cleaning the place and cooking our own food. This means that government has to pay for cleaning and get food for us,” Hodge said.
The inmates believe Dick has been ignoring them. “We are willing to keep up the strike till matters have been resolved,” Hodge said.
The inmates have been demanding, among other things, that they receive more pay for the work they do. Now they get paid NAf. 2 for a day of work.
They want an increase of at least 50 cents because they too have been feeling the increase in the cost of living, said Hodge.
Other matters for which the inmates want attention are better guidance by social workers for their families at home, and better health insurance. “When inmates play basketball, it has happened that someone has lost a tooth. However, they could not go to a dentist to replace the tooth,” Hodge said.
The problem with repeat offenders too has the association’s attention. Hodge said that often repeat offenders in pre-trial detention have been released pending their case in court, because supposedly there is no space in prison to lock them up.
“That’s not true. I believe the problem lies in bad communication and misunderstandings between the Prosecutor’s Office and prison management. We have proposed to release inmates who have only three to four more months to sit on their prison sentences so repeat offenders can be transferred to Pointe Blanche rather than setting them free again,” he said.
Finally, Hodge said there had been hardly any re-socialisation and rehabilitation programmes for the inmates for the past two years.
