Top government and judiciary officials yesterday met to discuss ways to ease overcrowding in the prisons and said the measures will be fleshed out over the next two weeks before being implemented.
“What we did was to identify measures by which the judiciary’s work, particularly at the magisterial level can impact in a way that brings about some relief particularly to the problem of overcrowding in the prisons,” Chancellor of the Judiciary Carl Singh told reporters shortly after the two-hour meeting had ended.
The meeting was held on the instructions of President David Granger following the deadly riot at the Georgetown Prison on March 3 which left 17 prisoners dead and several others nursing various degrees of injury. Prisoners, during a meeting with government ministers the day after the incident, complained bitterly about the length of time they were incarcerated awaiting the start of their trial.
One of the men who died had been behind bars for eight years still awaiting trial for the offence of murder.
