Nicholas Rainer
20 June 2008
Port Louis — Every now and again, violence flares up in one of the country's penal institutions. In Parliament on Tuesday, PM Navin Ramgoolam was asked about the incidents that occurred at La Bastille prison in Phoenix in which one group of prisoners attacked another, leaving three detainees seriously injured. Admittedly, jails hardly provide an environment conducive to spiritual and professional emancipation but why can't the authorities get a lasting grip on the situation?
"On 22 May 2008 at about 1225, five detainees, whilst they were in the newly constructed Association Yard 2 at the Phoenix Prison, broke the iron bar supporting the TV stand and found thereat and used it to break the padlock of the metal door. They then proceeded to the adjoining Association Yard 3 and broke the padlock giving access to that yard and assaulted three detainees." Barely a fortnight later, two other prisoners "broke the apertures of their cell doors and expanded metal frames fixed into the ventilators in the cells and used them to break open the cell door locks", Navin Ramgoolam explained.
Notwithstanding the apparent flimsiness of the prison's padlocks (one that had recently been renovated to boot), this flare-up is indicative of a greater malaise pervading the prison population. And lack of oversight allows the status quo to endure.
Mauritius has, however, shown some willingness to open up to constructive criticism. It signed and ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) in June 2005, thus allowing foreign observers to review "the treatment of persons detained in various institutions" and to conduct "private interviews with detainees".
In October 2007, the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) visited the Beau Bassin Central Prison, the New Wing prison, the Women's Prison and the Phoenix Prison, as well as 17 police facilities and rehabilitation centres.
According to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), its findings were submitted to the authorities earlier this year. Although the SPT's observations and conclusions are confidential, they can be made public "if the country agrees". The SPT can also take it upon itself to do so if it deems that the au-thorities are dragging their feet in the implementation of its recommendations.
Although the authorities have decided against making the SPT's report public, it is thought that the document was critical about the police force's over-reliance on confessions for convictions. It also deplored the treatment of prisoners at La Bastille in Phoenix, which prompted the government to close-down the high-security prison from October 2007 to May 2008.
Ratification of OPCAT also entails the setting up of a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM). "The SPT's mandate is complemented at the national level by national preventive mechanisms, which States Parties are obliged to designate within one year after the entry into force of the OPCAT on 22 June 2006. NPMs are also entitled to undertake visits to places where persons are deprived of their liberty".
According to the NHRC, "an ad-hoc NPM" has been set up. For a permanent one to see the light of day, the OPCAT has to be domesticated (incorporated into national law). This has yet to be done. It also recommends that a post of Inspector General of Prisons be created.
The non-grating of remission is also a problem as it adds to the overpopulation of the penitentiaries. In its 2007 report, the NHRC said that "remission should be reintroduced in prison for drug offenders and even those convicted in even those convicted of serious crimes. It has been that the absence of remission is a disincentive against good conduct and submission to prisons rules".
The NHRC even goes so far as to suggest that the non-granting of remission could constitute "inhuman or degrading punishment". Remand is also a big issue. According to the NHRC, "conditions of detention for those on remand (who are still presumed to be innocent) are to a great extent similar of those of convicted prisoners. Lack of space in GRNW [the prison where detainees are kept on remand] results in remand detainees being kept at Beau Bassin and mixing with convicted prisoners."
If the situation in the country's prisons leaves a lot to be desired, the real crux of the issue is perhaps the tendency to use incarceration as the first recourse rather than as a last resort. This is especially when it comes to drug offences. According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, the occupancy level of Mauritian jails is 104%. The great majority of detainees are "in" for drug-related offences. A group of prisoners said as much in a thought-provoking report they submitted to the authorities last year.
Injustice Institutionalized is a scathing critic of the State's reaction to the country's drug problem, which, in turn, is the reason why the prisons are swamped. "The method is essentially harsh repression manifested by a swarm of arrests followed by reckless an excessive prison sentences. It seems that the simplistic solution to the drug scourge according to the decision-makers and the law administrators and distributors is to fill up our prisons to over-saturation.
We would have said that this is sheer hypocrisy because they know pertinently well that imprisonment is no solution to the drugs problems. But we realized that it's not quite that. More than hypocrisy there is something more dreadful: This called playing to the gallery; showing the public that something is being done; that the war on drugs is raging and with such fatal blows (imprisonment of a maximum of addicts), we are approaching victory."
Perhaps it's time to tackle the country's drug problem in a holistic way rather than concealing it by simply whisking its victims off to jail.
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