By Mustapha Kamara Jnr
Prison Watch, a Civil Society Organization (CSO) in Sierra Leone, has championed the release of over 200 prisoners from five prisons across the country, through a six month project aimed at decongesting prisons and promoting the human rights of prisoners.
The CSO’s Executive Director, Mambu Feika, explained that with funds from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) they were able to provide the prisoners with legal representations which, he added, aided their release on bail. He said they had been monitoring all 17 correctional facilities across the country to make sure that the rights and welfare of prisoners and juveniles were promoted and protected.
The half year programme aimed at reducing the number of inmates who were in prisons for minor offences but lacked legal representations to push through with their matters in court. The UNDP funded project mostly targeted five congested prisons in Bo, Kenema, Makeni, and Porto Loko and in the Western Urban Area.
“With our intervention over the last ten weeks, about 200 hundred prisoners have been released on bail, causing the total number of prisoners to drop significantly from over 1,500 to about 1,300 in the five targeted prisons across the country,” Feika told Politico.
He said the programme would be extended so as to ensure that more prisoners were released from congested prisons.
As a humanitarian civil society organization in Sierra Leone, Feika pointed out that they were seriously concerned about the continuous increase in the number of prisoners at the country’s main Correctional Centre on Pademba Road in Freetown. He also noted that conditions in some prisons were not up to standard, adding that prisoners far exceeded the capacity of prisons.
As the raining season was fast approaching, the Prison Watch boss said his organization had observed over the years that more people were normally imprisoned during the wet season for committing criminal offences. He said majority of those imprisoned usually fell between the ages of 15-35 years. Reason for that, he added, could be attributed to the high rate of unemployment where young people were concerned.
“I hope with the Agenda for Prosperity there would be more effort by the government of Sierra Leone to provide more jobs for young and destitute Sierra Leoneans,” he said.
Feika urged the government to initiate more policies aimed at providing jobs to engage the minds of youths and prevent them from any involvement in criminal activities which would lead them into Prisons. He said many young people were being contained and underutilized at different correctional centers countrywide; adding that those youths could be rehabilitated and utilized properly.
The CSO boss said infrequent court sittings, lack of sufficient magistrates, lack of vehicles to take inmates to court in rural areas and lack of proper coordination between the Sierra Leone police and the Judiciary were some of the main reasons for the congestion of prisons. He revealed that there had been no court sittings for inmates in the Kambia, Porto Loko correctional centers since April 2014.
A recent report from Amnesty International on the state of human rights 2014/15 also criticizes Sierra Leone’s justice system.
According to the report, the country’s justice system was still suffering from lack of resources which usually lead to constant adjournment of cases, indictment delays and insufficiency of magistrates. It says that was a major contributing factor to lengthy pre-trail detentions and overcrowding in prisons across the country.
But prisons Public Relations Officer, Mohamed Opito Jimmy, denied any knowledge of prisoners not going to court. He said he would therefore not comment on it.
He however, confirmed that the prisons were indeed overcrowded as they presently had well over 1000 inmates at the Pademba Road Correctional Center alone. He said most of those in the prisons were either on remand or had been convicted by courts of law.
© Politico 16/04/15
