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Part Two: St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre and Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre


hangings should be resumed, in a walled compound immediately to the right as one enters the main gate.


At the time of the visit SCACC was holding around double its official capacity of 691, at 1285. As at TSACC, extreme overcrowding is a chronic feature of life at SCACC. Te average population of the prison in 1991, for example, was 1307. Disturbances and unrest at the institution have prompted two Jamaican commissions of inquiry over the last 15 years,11


and Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Committee


have drawn attention to inhuman conditions and maltreatment at St Catherine on several occasions,12


St Catherine as ‘the worst prison I have ever seen’.14 Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre


TSACC is the largest prison in Jamaica, with a capacity of around 900. Like St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre, it constantly holds around twice its official capacity, with 1663 inmates incarcerated at the time of the visit. I was informed by an officer that the highest ever number of prisoners held by the prison was 1825. Te fact that several of the correctional officers remembered the date on which this figure was reached – the 18th February 2003 – is testament to how much the overcrowding at the institution affects both inmates and staff alike.


TSACC, known locally as General Penitentiary or simply G.P., is very much a 19th century prison in appearance, with high red brick walls, and a central turreted tower which rises imposingly over the main gate. It is a more compact prison than SCACC. Upon entering the main gate one either is led through a labyrinthine series of stairwells and corridors to the Superintendent’s office, or though several gates and fenced areas towards the cell blocks themselves. Te prison is situated in the heart of the poor downtown area of Rae Town in southeast Kingston. Its southern wall leads directly on to the sea. It was not possible to ascertain an exact date for the opening of the prison, although the mid-19th century was suggested by officers, who also stated that the institution originally had connections with the slave trade, and that inmates were shipped directly in and out of the prison via a jetty on the seafront.


albeit not recently. In 1995 Gerald Kaufman MP commented to the


UK Parliament that ‘death row (in Jamaica) is one of the most abominable places that I have visited in my life’.13


In 1992, the Governor of Shepton Mallet Prison in the UK described


Report of the Board of Enquiry into Disturbances at the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre and the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre between 20th-23rd August 1997, and The Commissions of Enquiry Act Commission to Enquire into and Report on Recent Incidents at the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre on May 21st Through to May 25th 2000. 12


11


Torture/ Ill-treatment, medical care, prison conditions, AMR 38/005/2000. 13


14 Quoted ibid, column 319. 19


See UN Human Rights Committee, CCPR/c/79/add. 19th November 1997, Amnesty International, Jamaica: New Concerns: Fear of Hansard, House of Commons debates, 18th October 1995, column 318.


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