Justice Minister N. Oswald Tweh has underscored the need for the construction of new prison facilities across the country to aid in decongesting the overly crowded Monrovia Center Prison and other prisons across the country.
Speaking recently, Minister Tweh said the Monrovia Center Prison which was constructed to host a little over 350 inmates, now housed more than 1,500 inmates, something he described as unfortunate. He said the majority of those detained at the various prison centers across the country are pretrial prisoners who are yet to have their days in court.
“At the moment, we have 3780 inmates at the 16 prison centers across the country but unfortunately most of them are pretrial detainees…if a writ of arrest is issued for you, and you are taken to the court, be a magisterial court, the circuit courts, to obtain your freedom you have to put up a bond, if you don’t put up a bond, you are remitted to jail,” he said.
He said studies have shown that most of those arrested on allegations, are unable to process their valid bail bond on time as such they are sent to jail.
The Justice Minister said over the years, some judges have used their legal authority to allow family members of some suspects to stand on their behalf, sadly most of these people escaped upon their release.
“They don’t come back and the other party will accuse the judges of doing something. Some will say the judge collected money and set the suspect free; so because the judges try to prevent that, they usually ask for bond, and if you don’t have a bond they send you to jail. Just imagine in Monrovia alone you know how many cases go to the magisterial court every day? Monrovia City Court—ten persons arrested, ten persons cannot get a bond, they just sent those ten to jai,” he said.
Minister Tweh said this situation has contributed significantly to the overcrowding of almost all the prison centers across the country, and the Justice Ministry has liaised with the court system to release those who have been in prolonged pretrial detention for minor offences.
While outlining the challenges within those prison facilities, the Justice Minister underscored the need for the construction of additional prison facilities across the country, as most of the facilities in use now were not constructed for prison.
According to him, in 2013, the Ministry of Justice obtained 27-acres of land in Cheesmanburg, Montserrado County, for the construction of a modern prison facility to relocate the Monrovia Central Prison from the city center and also decongest nearby prison centers. “The government is now working with friends and partners to assist in constructing that facility,” he said.
Due to limited resources, the Minister said feeding the inmates regularly across the country has become a problem, but government is doing all it can to supply the food across prison facilities. He said poor road network in rural Liberia, occasioned by the heavy downpour as well as Public Procurement Concession regulation, are some of the challenges the ministry has been faced with in supplying the inmates.
“You need medical care; they have mini clinics; you need that to be staffed; you need adequate drugs. There are also some cases that cannot be handled; you have to transfer the inmate to a bigger facility that takes care of them and these facilities have to be paid. So it’s a whole issue I think we have to focus on and prioritize,” he said.
