Fol­low­ing is a com­men­tary by in­spec­tor of pris­ons, Daniel Khan, on the re­cent death of pris­on­er Placid Aimard Li­ma at the Gold­en Grove Prison in Arou­ca. Li­ma was found dead in his cell at Re­mand Yard last week­end af­ter he was al­leged­ly beat­en by oth­er pris­on­ers.With the pub­lic out­cry, heavy ques­tions and grave con­cerns sur­round­ing the most re­cent and trag­ic death that oc­curred in the Gold­en Grove Prison, Arou­ca, a para­mount is­sue re­volves around the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the death.The 500-page In­spec­tor of Pris­ons Re­port 2012 sub­mit­ted to the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice rec­om­mend­ed adopt­ing the In­spec­tor of Pris­ons Ire­land Re­port 2010 Guid­ance on the best prac­tice for in­ves­ti­gat­ing deaths in prison cus­tody.A pris­on­er is a ward of the State and, as such, when a death oc­curs in prison the State is un­der a statu­to­ry du­ty to in­ves­ti­gate the death and the sur­round­ing cir­cum­stances.

The State is ob­lig­at­ed to pro­tect the hu­man rights of its cit­i­zens and par­tic­u­lar­ly those who it de­prives of their lib­er­ty, the right of life be­ing the most fun­da­men­tal hu­man right. The du­ty is there­fore height­ened to vin­di­cate the pris­on­er's right to life.There must be ac­count­abil­i­ty for deaths oc­cur­ring un­der the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the State and a suf­fi­cient el­e­ment of pub­lic scruti­ny of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion or its re­sults to se­cure ac­count­abil­i­ty in prac­tice as well as in the­o­ry.An oner­ous bur­den of proof is placed on the State to pro­vide a sat­is­fac­to­ry and con­vinc­ing ex­pla­na­tion in the event the right to life, and even that of a pris­on­er, is snatched away.This oblig­a­tion is two-fold, as there is a pos­i­tive oblig­a­tion on the State to pro­tect the lives of such in­di­vid­u­als and sec­ond­ly to car­ry out an ef­fec­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion fol­low­ing a death in state cus­tody. This is not con­strained to where death was caused by an agent of the State, it is al­so done when oth­er in­mates cause death.

An ef­fec­tive and in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion must be car­ried out prompt­ly by the State to main­tain pub­lic con­fi­dence.

It is a re­quire­ment that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion must be of such a thor­ough and ef­fec­tive na­ture as to be ca­pa­ble of lead­ing to the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and pun­ish­ment of those re­spon­si­ble.It must be ro­bust, in­de­pen­dent and trans­par­ent to ful­fil cer­tain el­e­ments of Sec­tion 4 of the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, which pro­vides for the fun­da­men­tal right to life. There is there­fore a pro­ce­dur­al oblig­a­tion to in­ves­ti­gate the par­tic­u­lar death.Ac­cord­ing to the guid­ance on the best prac­tice for in­ves­ti­gat­ing deaths in prison cus­tody by Judge Reil­ly (Ire­land Re­port, 2010), the pro­ce­dur­al as­pect, which is an oblig­a­tion of the state, in­cludes a min­i­mum re­quire­ment of a mech­a­nism where­by the cir­cum­stances of a de­pri­va­tion of life by agents of the State may re­ceive pub­lic and in­de­pen­dent scruti­ny.This means that an in­quiry must be made and its con­clu­sion re­leased to the pub­lic. This du­ty is ex­tend­ed to in­di­vid­u­als who are im­pris­oned. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the in­volve­ment of a next of kin is nec­es­sary so as to safe­guard his le­git­i­mate in­ter­ests.

This is to pro­vide the ag­griev­ed fam­i­ly with some amount of re­lief and to re­in­force that jus­tice will be served to pro­vide the clo­sure they seek, and to the pop­u­lace.The Ire­land Re­port fur­ther states that this in­ves­ti­ga­tion can be done through a coro­ner's in­quest, an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the prison au­thor­i­ties hav­ing cus­tody of the de­ceased per­son and the po­lice.The prison rules pro­vide for dis­ci­plin­ing pris­on­ers who breach prison reg­u­la­tions. Fur­ther, the Coro­ner's Act Cap 6:04 em­pow­ers the coro­ner to in­ves­ti­gate the death of any per­son in cus­tody and to hold an in­quest to as­cer­tain the cause and cir­cum­stances of the death and whether a full crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion should be car­ried out.A pros­e­cu­tion may sub­se­quent­ly fol­low. The pur­pose of the in­quest is to es­tab­lish the facts sur­round­ing the death and, ad­di­tion­al­ly, to af­ford trans­paren­cy to the pub­lic record by as­cer­tain­ing the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the de­ceased, the date and place of death and the cause of death. The pris­ons com­mis­sion­er is re­quired to pre­pare a re­port on every death in prison for the min­is­ter of jus­tice and a copy is to be pro­vid­ed to the in­spec­tor of pris­ons.

This re­port is on­ly fi­nalised un­til af­ter the coro­ner's in­quest is held and in­cludes the de­tails re­gard­ing the pris­on­er's his­to­ry in prison, the re­sult of any crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­gard­ing the pris­on­er's death, med­ical ev­i­dence, the re­sults of the post mortem, the state­ments of the prison of­fi­cers and an overview by the Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er.An in­ves­ti­ga­tion of any less­er de­gree falls afoul of the pro­ce­dur­al re­quire­ments and opens the gates to pub­lic scruti­ny as it ren­ders a dis­ser­vice to the pub­lic.A grow­ing con­cern and pos­si­bly an ag­gra­vat­ing fac­tor is the over­crowd­ing of our pris­ons.

Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Mar­tin Mar­tinez in­di­cat­ed that the Re­mand Yard sec­tion hous­es over 1,156 in­mates al­though it is built to ac­com­mo­date 655 per­sons.It is clear that pris­on­ers shar­ing cells need to be more close­ly mon­i­tored to en­sure they do not vent their frus­tra­tions on each oth­er. Cer­tain class­es of pris­on­ers are re­quired to be seg­re­gat­ed based on the grav­i­ty and na­ture of the crime. This should be en­sured in ac­cor­dance with the Prison Rules.It is hoped that the Ire­land re­port, as con­tained in the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­spec­tor of Pris­ons Re­port 2012, will be adopt­ed and close­ly fol­lowed to en­sure thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­duct­ed and to aid in the pre­ven­tion of sim­i­lar tragedies from oc­cur­ring in the fu­ture.This will no doubt be of ben­e­fit and im­por­tance not on­ly to the State, but more so, in the pur­suit of jus­tice for the ag­griev­ed fam­i­lies of de­ceased pris­on­ers.