Major concerns about the Pointe Blanche prison were expressed by the Progress Committee (see related story). That conditions there are bad was already known, but calling the situation “hopeless” indicates how serious it really is.
The committee monitors implementation of Plans of Approach for the county’s law enforcement sector that accompanied country status per 10-10-10. Eight years later the penitentiary remains a mostly unresolved headache worsened by extensive damage it suffered during the catastrophic passage of Hurricane Irma.
The suggestion for an arrangement with the Netherlands to provide structural support in carrying out the island’s detention responsibility seems a no-brainer at this stage. It has become quite clear that St. Maarten is unable to do so adequately on its own certainly under the present circumstances.
The Dutch government said soon after the island’s worst natural disaster that they would not pay to build a prison as part of the relief effort, in part because this might send the wrong message. Although there is perhaps some truth to the latter, safeguarding basic civil rights also for inmates falls within the kingdom’s guarantee function and is required by international treaties. The report plainly stated that “applying bandages doesn’t help anymore.”
In addition, the planned August 1 departure of personnel from the Netherlands giving much-needed assistance in guarding and securing the correctional facility is an unsettling thought, as it’s highly doubtful enough replacements can still be recruited and/or trained before then. Another looming deadline regards the termination of arrangements to house detainees elsewhere in the kingdom due to the current lack of local capacity.
If these issues are not properly tackled soon, suspects and/or sentenced criminals may increasingly not always be placed behind bars when they should, with all possible consequences for society and the tourism economy on which it depends. The idea to partially finance the construction of a new prison from the first tranche of the Dutch Recovery Trust Fund at the World Bank while emergency repairs are carried out on the existing complex therefore makes all the sense in the world.
