Calls mount for urgent reform of Jamaica's lockups

 

Calls are mounting for urgent reform of Jamaica's lockups following the conviction and sentencing of three cops in connection with the death of Mario Deane while in custody.

 

Corporal Elaine Stewart, the senior cop involved, was sentenced to five years on the manslaughter conviction, one year for misconduct in a public office, and one year for acts tending and intending to pervert the course of justice. 

 

The sentences are to run concurrently. 

 

Meanwhile, constables Marlon Grant and Juliana Clevon were sentenced to three years in prison suspended for two years. 

 

The three police officers were convicted on May 25. 

 

Deane died on August 6, 2014, three days after he was beaten by other prisoners at the Barnett Street Police lockup in St. James. 

 

Attorney-at-law Leonard Green said the case highlights a long-standing crisis. 

 

"I think it's something that we need to address. We must speak to it; we must never relent in our efforts to ensure that the conditions in these lockups are humane. They are far from humane. And in fact...when you go to these lockups, the police officers, they are as stretched. The whole environment is awful. The place is smelly," he complained.

 

Meanwhile, attorney-at-law Clyde Williams said the incident underscores a deeper problem - how poor black Jamaican men are treated by the justice system. 

 

"A ganja spliff is what he lost his life over. And the fact that they put him in a lockup with hardened criminals, people were in there charged with serious offences - not saying they're guilty, but they were charged with serious offences. And that they put him in that lockup and didn't immediately offer him station bail in his own surety for the little piece of ganja spliff weh him go in deh for. And when the other inmates were calling out, the fact that they ignored the voices and allowed [him] to just remain there," the attorney lamented. 

 

Mr. Williams and Mr. Green were both speaking Wednesday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines.