Dozens of condemned inmates at the Pademba Road Male Correctional Centre will be relocated to the Mafanta Correctional Centre in Tonkolili district, three miles off Magburaka town, according to the Director-General of the Sierra Leone Correctional Service.
Mr. Joseph Lamboi said that this was part of efforts to solve the overcrowding problem in the Pademba Road Correctional Centre, especially the condemn block.
“The condemn block was constructed to house 28 inmates, but it now houses more than 65 condemned inmates. This poses some security threats. I stressed this point in our last council meeting, chaired by His Excellency the Vice President. The VP urged us to do the needful in order to tackle the choking situation of the condemned and life imprisonment inmates,” the DG revealed.
Mr. Lamboi enlightened that condemn inmates were those who committed serious crimes such as murder, treason, robbery with aggravation, and others.
“The kinds of crimes they committed means that they are to be placed in a maximum prison facility, and the only maximum prison we have in the country is the Pademba Road Correctional Centre. As soon as these inmates are moved out of the Pademba Road Correctional Centre, Mafanta Centre will immediately be classed as a maximum prison.”
The Mafanta Correctional Centre, DG further explained, was the only Centre in the country that did not house remand, trial, or appellant inmates- it was designed to accommodate only convicted inmates, adding the centre’s maximum capacity is 450, with three blocks within.
While on an assessment visit at Mafanta, the DG and some other key officers identified one of the blocks as fit for keeping the condemn inmates.
Late last year, 300 inmates were moved from the Pademba Road Correctional Centre to the Mafanta Correctional Centre.
The Pademba Road Male Correctional Center was built for 324 inmates now houses close to over 2,000 prisoners.
In Sierra Leone, prison and detention centre conditions are harsh and life threatening due to food shortages, gross overcrowding; consequent upon an inefficient justice system, lack of sufficient correctional facilities and personnel, lack of clean water, inadequate sanitary conditions, and lack of medical care, according to the 2019 U.S. State Department Human Rights Report.
The report shows that, the country’s 20 prisons, designed to hold 2,055 inmates, held 4,559 as of August 2019. The most severe example of overcrowding was in the Freetown Male Correctional Centre, designed to hold 324 inmates, which held 2,089. Some prison cells measuring six feet by nine feet held nine or more inmates, according to the Report
By Salieu S. Kanu
20/10/2020. ISSUE NO: 7934