Alloy Youksee, MSC,
Remanded prisoners in T&T are detained under the legal maxim "assumed innocent until proven guilty." The United Nations incorporated the principle in its Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 under article 11, section 1.
In spite of the French legal system's being based on rebarbative Roman jurisprudence, it did include an article in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 stating, "every man is presumed innocent until declared guilty." In the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen decreed by the National Assembly, article 9 informs, "All persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law."
The latter part of the declaration stated, "All harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law" is very significant and relevant to the state of remanded prisoners today in T&T. For the most part, harshness has always been associated with the nation's prisons since people believed that offenders "came to prison for punishment and not as punishment." This is reflective of societal retributive thinking.
Our prison history goes back further than that of Britain and can be traced to the coming of the Spanish to our shores. T&T's prison system has evolved to be a harsher prison experience to that of England because of our history of slavery and indentureship.
According to the Inspector of Prisons Report, 2012 (p. 21), Madam Justice Carol Gobin in Edgehill stated, "the atrocities of the slave trade as well as indentureship are well known to us and have been part of our history. Some of the conditions at the Remand Yard are not so different from those experienced by our forefathers."
Thus, it is no great surprise that accused people are detained for periods of time longer than if they were sentenced to a term of imprisonment for the crime they are accused of, without urgent active intervention to change the system. This arrangement defeats the legal maxim of the "assumption of innocence."
The matter is made significantly worse if the person is actually innocent! We can judge their pain and frustration by the level of complaints and at times violent reactions by detainees with regard to their sense of injustice they must rightfully feel. The slow pace of the administration of justice in T&T has led to this untenable situation. Something is definitely wrong in our criminal justice.
In the process, children grow up without the benefit of the incarcerated parent or parents. Relationships with significant others of these detainees are put under severe stress and strain or is dissolved. Opportunities are lost and effectively lives are shattered and destroyed. Communities and society can be negatively affected as a result.
In such circumstances, remanded prisoners' rage and resentment build and fester. Expression is found in conflict with other inmates and staff. Prison officers whose jobs come with an inherent risk are put at even greater unnecessary risk. It is the officer who is seen as an official representative of the system that has created such injustice.
Therefore, he or she becomes the target for inmate reprisal. This scenario is potentially very dangerous and explosive. In addition, any effort at rehabilitation is defeated from the onset. Positive reintegration, recidivism and public safety are also negatively impacted when these people are released.
For this situation to persist into the 21st century in T&T says something that is not very flattering about our beliefs, values and the social institutions that those values give rise to. At some point, a change must be made, the urgency of our reality demands that we can no longer go down the road of revenge and retribution or risk as a society of becoming the very thing we hate!
According to Gandhi, "you must be the change you wish to see in the world." This is a critical element in order for our society to evolve as a civilised, just, merciful, caring and modern society.
Along the same trajectory, in an interview dated April 27, 2016, on CNC3, Archbishop Joseph Harris informed, "If we want to be a merciful society, we must be merciful ourselves." He added, "A good place to start would be in the homes, mothers and fathers must be merciful to each other and they must also be merciful to their children."
In other words, change must begin with us for the message of the unreformed reformer seldom inspires reformation! This is everybody's business. If we do what we can in our neck of the woods and others do what they can in their neck of the woods, then and only then, can we hope to reverse the decay that plagues every facet of our society.
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