Minister for Health and Social Development Honourable Marlon Penn has reaffirmed his commitment to bettering the situation at His Majesty’s Prison amid continued security concerns and reports of violence, among inmates and against staff.
Penn said with the assistance of the United Kingdom, the government has been able to begin necessary interventions.
“From time to time you have indecencies at the prison. I think we’re looking now at the human resourcing of the prison. We got some assistance a few months ago from some United Kingdom officers who came in, paid by the United Kingdom, to help us put some systems in place and procedures in place”, he said.
One key aspect of this intervention, he said, has been management support.
“We now have an officer again, on the ground, to support Guy Hill in terms of the management support at the prison. As you know many of the officers were interdicted. There’s a limited amount of officers there right now. We’re trying to transition and deal with the human resources needed at the prison, also with the security issues at the prison”, Penn explained.
Outside of the human aspect of the matter, Penn admitted that several infrastructural interventions need to be made to better secure the facility. These, he said, are well in the pipeline.
“We’re improving infrastructure, putting in flood lighting, fixing the wall, there’s a security gate that we’re fixing as well. There’s several things that we’re doing to really improve things at the prison. Some of which I can’t go into details because naturally there’s a security issue. But we are doing our best to address the issues at the prison”, he said.
While the prison’s staffing issues came to a head earlier this year due to the suspension of principal prison officers who are being investigated for misconduct, the prison’s violence issues have been further reaching.
Notable incidents in recent times include a June 2021 incident which left three inmates wounded and one dead, and in October later that year, when a man who had been on remand for drug possession accused officers of brutality against detainees.