Notice

Former prison doctor, Raymoth Notice, who worked in the St. Catherine AdultCorrectional Centre between 1996 and 2001, was among the first to expose incidents of sexual abuse of prisoners 10 years ago. Today, he contends there are more mentally ill inmates in the island?s prisons than in mental institutions, and prison authorities have been unresponsive to abuse of this population over the years simply because prisoners do not have any political clout. He says that it is worsened by the lack of training of warders who do not know how to treat issues of sexual abuse inside the prisoners.

Dr. Notice says often, warders see the rape of inmates as a form of punishment and so turn a blind eye to reports of the incidents. No crime should be punished by rape, and I don?t think HIV should be part of anyone?s punishment, he says. ?The mentally ill inmates are segregated and mistreated. Most times their only crime is hallucinations, but it doesn?t mean they ought to be raped,?he continues.

No statistics

The former prisoner doctor says while there are no statistics to indicate how frequent sex abuse is in our prisons, United States statistics show that one in six inmates are raped in prison and the data were likely similar to Jamaica. The issue, he says, first arose in Jamaican prisons in 1996 when a number of mentally ill inmates were found to be HIV-positive after testing negative for the virus previously.

There is a sex trade that is taking place where they trade mental inmates [for contraband]. I have seen inmates die because they couldn?t get help. We ask for compassionate release but that is difficult, he says.

Dr. Notice is calling for a complete and urgent overhaul of prison management, by improving the qualifications of warders in prisons. He says an audit of the psychological state of mentally ill inmates is also needed as most can be treated.