Juveniles Hosted At Main Prison Due To Lack Of Amenities Authorities in Eastern Equatoria State’s Torit Prison are holding 11 juveniles in the main adult detention centre due to lack of reformatory facilities in the region, an official has said. 17 June 2013 Juveniles Hosted At Main Adult Prison Due To Lack Of Funds Yei Prison sanitation facilities. The increasing number of criminals in the county is posing a health risk. [Gurtong | File]
By Peter Lokale Nakimangole TORIT, 17 June 2013 [Gurtong] – The Director of Torit County Prison, Col. Anthony Lemi Mimbe disclosed to the press that the juveniles, earlier on, were convicted to serve their terms in reform homes but because of lack of reformatory facility in the region, have now been detained in the Main detention centre. He added that authorities are trapped to follow the courts directive due to lack of the facility. He noted that the 11 juveniles convicted to serve a range of prison terms with the highest of 7 years, on murder charges, are locked in the main correctional facility together with the adults. Torit correctional facility holds up to 224 inmates inclusive of 110 convicted, 56 on remand, six juveniles, 17 guarantee prisoners, a lunatic and one baby, as accompanying inmate. Col. Lemi said the mixed up of juvenile to serve sentences on various offences has worried the prison authorities. Eight other convicts on death sentences are also in the same facility, Prison officials disclosed. Disliking accommodation of the juvenile offenders together with adults in the same facility may make them hard to reform and instead they are continued to acquire more criminal knowledge, tricks and adopt rigidity because at times they are subjected to bullying by the adult counterparts, the prison Director worries that this could model the children into hardcore criminals. In attempt to maintain separate accommodation for the young and adult convicts, amidst the challenges of facility scarcity, the prison authorities have partitioned the existing wards to guide the juvenile within the same facility but without real restrictions. Eastern Equatoria State Director for Child Welfare in the Ministry of Culture, Social Development, Youths and Sports, Mrs. Jane Surur blames austerity measures in the country experiences for lack reformatories in the state which she believes would have been built to resolve the outstanding question. She noted that an initiative to establish remand homes at Chukudum in Budi County and Narus in Kapoeta East County is hit by the current austerity measures. According to her, the juveniles in Torit correctional facility are not really imprisoned but are temporarily serving in a dormitory due to absence of reformatory schools or homes. Last year, the Human Rights Watch launched an investigative report depicting the status of human rights in South Sudan prisons. The 105-page report titled “Prison Is Not for Me: Arbitrary Detention in South Sudan", documents violations of due process rights, patterns of wrongful deprivation of liberty, and the harsh, unacceptable prison conditions in which detainees live. During the launch, South Sudan Vice President Dr Riek Machar said that the report will help his government in soliciting for suitable solutions to address the challenges facing the prisons department. The research was carried out in twelve of the country’s 79 prisons during a 10-month period before and after South Sudan’s independence in areas with the largest prison populations. It revealed that, a third of South Sudan's prison population of approximately 6,000 has not been convicted of any offense or in some cases even charged with one, but are detained, often for long periods, waiting for police, prosecutors, and judges to process their cases. The vast majority of detainees have no legal representation, because they cannot afford a lawyer and South Sudan has no functioning legal aid system, adding that Judges pass long sentences and even condemn to death people who, without legal assistance, were unable to understand the nature of charges against them or to call and prepare witnesses in their defense. The government pointed out infrastructural challenges, insecurity, budget constraints and other political problems that hinder government’s efforts to prioritise the improvement of the prisons in the country. Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 250 inmates and a range of justice officials, correctional officers, police, prosecutors, and traditional authorities. Posted in: Home, Governance -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14opx%2Boe33Cx9up%3DssJL-mb35KvBscRq_YmvpGxsywXUA6A%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
