‘Fit for animals’: Former detainee wants compensation over prison conditions

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

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For­mer de­tainees and their rel­a­tives say an apol­o­gy from the State would not be enough for what they en­dured while in de­ten­tion, with one for­mer de­tainee de­scrib­ing con­di­tions as fit on­ly for an­i­mals.

Yes­ter­day, for­mer de­tainee Arnez Pay­i­son said he and oth­ers re­leased with­out charge should re­ceive com­pen­sa­tion, rather than just an apol­o­gy.

Speak­ing out­side the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC) af­ter his re­lease, the 23-year-old min­i­mart own­er said con­di­tions at the fa­cil­i­ty were un­fit for hu­man habi­ta­tion.

“In there, it’s not nice. In there is good for dogs, chick­ens, you know, an­i­mals. It’s not good for hu­man be­ings, you un­der­stand? We need some re­spect as civil­ians. That’s what we need.”

Asked what more he and oth­er for­mer de­tainees should re­ceive, Pay­i­son replied: “Mon­ey. Com­pen­sa­tion. Six months of wast­ed time. We can’t get back that time.”

A preg­nant woman, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, re­turned to the ECRC yes­ter­day af­ter ini­tial­ly be­ing told to take her rel­a­tive home on Sat­ur­day. How­ev­er, a pro­ce­dur­al mix-up forced her to re­turn yes­ter­day.

“They called me yes­ter­day (Mon­day) and said to come up to­day (Tues­day) again. I got here about 8.20 am. When we ar­rived, they still weren’t sure of the time. Then some­body came out and said they weren’t start­ing un­til af­ter 12.”

Like Pay­i­son, the woman said the State should com­pen­sate for­mer de­tainees. She said an apol­o­gy alone would not be enough.

“An apol­o­gy? Can an apol­o­gy make up for six months? Some peo­ple were de­tained for three months. Homes were bro­ken apart, and chil­dren start­ed giv­ing their moth­ers trou­ble be­cause their fa­thers weren’t there. An apol­o­gy can’t fix that. As for me, I’m tak­ing them straight to court. I want my mon­ey. I’ve spent too much mon­ey be­cause of this. I am go­ing to take le­gal ac­tion.”

Af­ter be­ing freed, some for­mer de­tainees sprint­ed in­to the arms of loved ones, while oth­ers waved at Guardian Me­dia from ve­hi­cles as they made their way home.

Rel­a­tives at both the ECRC and Gold­en Grove com­plained that the re­lease process took too long, forc­ing them to wait hours with­out ac­cess to toi­let fa­cil­i­ties. Fam­i­lies were told to ar­rive by 8 am, with some com­ing as ear­ly as 6 am, on­ly to be in­formed that de­tainees would be re­leased in batch­es be­gin­ning around mid­day. The first batch of eight for­mer de­tainees was re­leased from the ECRC short­ly af­ter 1 pm.

A to­tal of 100 de­tainees were sched­uled to be re­leased yes­ter­day, in­clud­ing 49 from the ECRC, 45 from the Re­mand Prison at Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, and six from the Women’s Prison at Gold­en Grove. By the end of the State of Emer­gency to­mor­row, a to­tal of 564 de­tainees are ex­pect­ed to be re­leased.

Yes­ter­day was the fourth day de­tainees were re­leased af­ter the mass re­lease be­gan last Thurs­day.