US human rights report finds prison conditions poor, deteriorating

Prison and jail conditions here remain poor and deteriorating with the Georgetown Prisons holding twice its capacity, the US State Department says in its latest Human Rights Report.
The report, issued yesterday, covered 2010 and according to the State Department, in addition to poor prison and jail conditions and lengthy pre-trial detention, the principal human rights abuses were complaints of unlawful killings by police, and mistreatment of suspects and detainees by security forces. Other problems included allegations of government corruption, including among police officials, and sexual and domestic violence against women and abuse of minors.

The report pointed out that police holding cells were particularly poor and capacity and resource constraints remain a problem with the Prison Authority reporting at the end of October last year that there were 2,122 prisoners in five facilities, which had a combined design capacity of 1,580.

Approximately half of the prisoners were in