Klao Bell, Staff ReporterThe Government is yet to outline a plan to compensate the mentally ill persons still in prison, for what human rights activists consider to be false imprisonment.
Neither has there been Government involvement with finding shelter for these persons, many of whom have long lost touch with their families and communities.
Instead, churches, human rights groups and non-governmental organisations (NGO) have been scrambling to find lodging for the approximately 70 persons who have been released since April 2001.
"We've had to ask judges to put off cases until places can be found for them. We want them out of prison but when the case is dismissed, they're virtually released unto the streets. They are due compensation because they were lost in the system for a very long time...it's practically false imprisonment," stated Nancy Anderson, secretary to the Independent Jamaica Council of Human Rights (IJCHR).
A human rights activist who works with several groups concerned about the status of the mentally ill in Jamaica, and is often a part of the effort to find lodgings for newly released persons described the difficulty.
"Bellevue absolutely refuses to take them. Several parish inspectors of the poor have adamantly refused to take them. There really is no placement for them," said the activist who asked not to be named in the story.
Frantic calls
Bellevue Hospital, the island's mental health institution is already straddled with hundreds of mentally ill patients who have nowhere to go.
When 80-year-old Everald Gayle was released from prison last week, social workers made frantic calls to several NGOs which were too full to accept him.
They approached the May Pen infirmary but Mr. Gayle, who is from Clarendon was at first refused.
Valda Sweeney, poor relief inspector for the Clarendon Parish Council explained, however, that she was being asked to breach standard procedures in accepting Mr. Gayle.
"It's not that we were unwilling to take him, it's that procedures weren't followed. Before anyone is accepted to the infirmary, background checks must be done, but they brought him here without any notice. Besides this is not the ideal place for them, they need to be in a place where they can be rehabilitated," Ms. Sweeney said.
Last April, the May Pen infirmary refused to accept Ivan Barrows when he was released from prison after 29 years. An infirmary in another parish, accepted Barrows but with great secrecy and only after a church group agreed to finance his stay there.
About 70 mentally ill persons have been released from prison since last year, but only half of them have been placed with relatives.
The laws of Jamaica state that persons who have been charged for an offence must be cognisant of and able to accept responsibility for the offence committed. If unable to do so - they are said to be, "unfit to plead" and are placed in the care of the Correctional Services, which must see to their mental health.
Howard Hamilton QC, the Public Defender, said the Government has a moral and legal obligation to these mentally ill persons.
"Where there are situations where no relatives are identifiable there is a moral responsibility on the part of the Government... If it can be established that any form of negligence on the part of he Government resulted in their being left in the system, then they are due compensation," the Public Defender said.
