Inmates will continue with
strike till court date is set
POINTE BLANCHE--The Inmates Association at the Pointe Blanche prison has been on a work strike since Thursday, November 1, and will continuing with it until they have a date on which they will take government to court concerning several of their grievances.
Association President Sherwin Hodge told The Daily Herald the inmates had forwarded a letter to Justice Minister David Dick stating their grievances on September 19, but hadn’t received a satisfactory answer.
The strike means that the inmates are not doing any work in prison. They are not cleaning the place or cooking their own food. Government has to pay for cleaning and buy cooked meals for the inmates.
The inmates have demanded, 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.
They also complained of not having any rehabilitation programmes. 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 they have lost a tooth. However, they could not go to a dentist to replace the tooth,” Hodge said.
The problem with repeat offenders also has the association’s attention. Hodge said that often repeat offenders in pre-trial detention had been released pending their cases in court because supposedly there was no space in the 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 releasing inmates that have only three to four more months to go on their jail sentence so repeat offenders can be transferred to Pointe Blanche rather than setting them free again,” he said.
