Jamaica
Seen in the press
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Jamaica: mentally ill incarcerated people denied release from prison
Applications by the Legal Aid Council for the Supreme Court to release six incarcerated people with mental disorders, who were unfit to plead, were refused because the Judge Leighton Pusey found that there were no appropriate accommodations for them.
Jamaica: helping move mentally ill out of prison not an issue
“Resources and funding” have been identified by Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton as the hurdles that his ministry would need to clear in order to find suitable spaces so that mentally ill prisoners can be removed from correctional facilities. A recommendation for “some place other…Jamaica: judges still tossing children "behind bars" for uncontrollable behaviour, years after efforts started to end practice
Human rights advocacy group Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) has raised concerns that the practice has re-emerged and provided The Sunday Gleaner with statistics which suggest that in 2018, some 413 children (211 males and 203 girls) appeared before court, not for committing an offence but for exhibitin…Terror behind bars: damning report on treatment of homosexuals in Jamaica prisons
Jamaica has long been regarded as a homophobic country, and now a damning report on HIV/AIDS in the country’s prisons has unearthed some alarming problems. According to a new report, Barriers Behind Bars, inmates who have been identified as lesbian or gay are being unfairly treated. The report prep…Jamaica: prisons to receive urgent upgrade following Tower Street blaze
Several of the island’s correctional facilities are in need of urgent infrastructural development, and the Tower Street Adult Correctional Facility in downtown Kingston is among those to receive priority focus, Senator Pearnel Charles Jr, minister of state in the Ministry of National Security, has…Jamaica: correctional officers, recruits to be polygraphed in prison corruption clampdown
The National Security Ministry has announced that all correctional officers and recruits are to be polygraphed as part of new measures aimed at cutting the smuggling of cell phones and other contraband into correctional facilities.Jamaica: plea for the unfit - proposal to transfer the mentally ill from prisons
Persons held in Jamaica’s prisons who have been deemed ‘unfit to plead’ could be moved into a more fitting environment if the Government accepts the recommendations of the Mental Health and Homelessness Task Force, established by Minister of Health Dr Christopher Tufton.