Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA), Lester Lo­gie, is rais­ing an alarm over the coun­try’s prison sys­tem, not­ing that near­ly two-thirds of the in­car­cer­at­ed pop­u­la­tion is made up of re­mand in­mates—in­di­vid­u­als await­ing tri­al who have not been con­vict­ed of any crime.

Dur­ing an ad­dress to mem­bers on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, Lo­gie said the na­tion’s cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties were nev­er de­signed to ac­com­mo­date such a large re­mand pop­u­la­tion. He said the sit­u­a­tion is plac­ing added pres­sure on both se­cu­ri­ty and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ef­forts.

“The prison pop­u­la­tion has changed, and now the Prison Ser­vice is forced to give these in­mates pro­grammes, and those pro­grammes, most times, com­pro­mise the se­cu­ri­ty with­in the prison,” Lo­gie ex­plained.

He point­ed out that re­mand­ed in­mates are of­ten held for ten to 15 years in cramped con­di­tions, spend­ing up to 23 hours a day in a cell with oth­er in­mates. Prison of­fi­cials have com­plained about se­vere over­crowd­ing and have at­tempt­ed to ex­tend re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive pro­grammes orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed for con­vict­ed pris­on­ers.

“Now the pro­grammes are re­al­ly for con­vict­ed in­mates. What we are do­ing, we should not be do­ing for a re­mand­ed in­mate. They are not guilty of any­thing, they are not con­vict­ed, and they should not be treat­ed as such,” Lo­gie said.

His com­ments came af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an al­leged smug­gling ring at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, which led to the ar­rest of an act­ing su­per­in­ten­dent of pris­ons un­der a pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­der.

Lo­gie stressed that the dilem­ma of how the au­thor­i­ties treat re­mand in­mates must be­come a mat­ter of pub­lic con­cern.

“Do we give them pro­grammes and have them, mur­der ac­cused, out­side the prison be­cause they are in­car­cer­at­ed and can’t move as freely? Some are not on bail or can­not af­ford bail. How do we treat with them? Do we send them home on a day pass to spend with their fam­i­ly? That is some­thing the wider pub­lic needs to con­sid­er,” he said.

The Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary urged the Gov­ern­ment, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and so­ci­ety at large to en­gage in find­ing work­able so­lu­tions to ad­dress the grow­ing re­mand prob­lem while safe­guard­ing the in­tegri­ty of the prison sys­tem.

“How do we treat with a prison pop­u­la­tion that is main­ly re­mand­ed? The prison pop­u­la­tion has changed, and we have to come up with so­lu­tions in deal­ing with them that do not com­pro­mise se­cu­ri­ty,” Lo­gie added.