Prison Officers’ Association backs compensation for PDO detainees

Peo­ple de­tained un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) should re­ceive some form of com­pen­sa­tion for the con­di­tions in which they were held, says Pris­ons Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don.

Gor­don’s com­ments come amid grow­ing calls for com­pen­sa­tion from for­mer de­tainees and their rel­a­tives, fol­low­ing re­ports of harsh con­di­tions at de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ties dur­ing the State of Emer­gency (SoE).

For­mer de­tainee Arnez Pay­i­son, who was re­leased with­out charge, said on Tues­day that an apol­o­gy from the State would not be enough for the time he and oth­ers spent in de­ten­tion.

The 23-year-old min­i­mart own­er de­scribed con­di­tions at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre as un­fit for hu­man habi­ta­tion and said for­mer de­tainees de­served com­pen­sa­tion for the time they lost.

“Mon­ey. Com­pen­sa­tion. Six months of wast­ed time. We can’t get back that time,” Pay­i­son said.

At­tor­ney Nyree Al­fon­so al­so said peo­ple who were wrong­ful­ly de­tained un­der a PDO could have grounds for le­gal ac­tion against the State, with the con­di­tions in which they were held po­ten­tial­ly af­fect­ing dam­ages.

Al­fon­so said re­ports of de­tainees be­ing held in con­di­tions in­clud­ing a 20-foot con­tain­er with rats and cock­roach­es, no run­ning wa­ter and a clogged toi­let could be rel­e­vant to any claim.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Gor­don said he agreed that com­pen­sa­tion should be con­sid­ered, par­tic­u­lar­ly for peo­ple who were nev­er charged.

How­ev­er, he said com­pen­sa­tion would not ad­dress the wider prob­lem of poor con­di­tions with­in the prison ser­vice.

“What I be­lieve the point is be­ing missed is that there is no move by the State to im­prove those con­di­tions,” he said.

Gor­don said the is­sue was par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing be­cause peo­ple de­tained un­der PDOs had not been con­vict­ed of any crime and, in some cas­es, had not even been charged.

He said there was no de­ten­tion cen­tre specif­i­cal­ly built to ac­com­mo­date peo­ple held un­der PDOs, mean­ing they were placed in the same con­di­tions as peo­ple who had been ar­rest­ed and charged, were on re­mand or had been con­vict­ed.

“It is no se­cret; we have been say­ing it for a while now, the prison is not fit for dogs,” Gor­don said.

Gor­don said the State al­so need­ed to con­sid­er what would hap­pen if sim­i­lar emer­gency mea­sures were in­tro­duced in the fu­ture and peo­ple were again de­tained un­der PDOs.

“The prison ser­vice should not con­tin­ue to suf­fer be­cause it is not po­lit­i­cal­ly sexy to do so,” he said.

At least four prison of­fi­cers were al­so de­tained un­der PDOs dur­ing the SoE.

Gor­don said the as­so­ci­a­tion would sup­port of­fi­cers who re­mained in good stand­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who were nev­er charged.

Gor­don said some of­fi­cers had suf­fered dam­age to their lives and liveli­hoods and ex­pressed con­cern that they had al­so faced neg­a­tive treat­ment from some of their own col­leagues. He said de­ten­tion or ar­rest should not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be equat­ed with guilt be­fore a charge is laid or a court has ad­ju­di­cat­ed the mat­ter.