.#AToZChallengeJamaica: I is for Indignity

I should have posted this much earlier in the day. Apologies to my fellow blogger Susan. This is such an important issue across the board. Indignity is something Jamaicans have to suffer too often, at the hands of someone with some kind of power – whether it’s a security guard, a prison warder, a police officer…and so on.

Right Steps & Poui Trees

I had all sorts of things in mind for my “I” post: iguana, INDECOM, IMF, Integrity Commission, even ice cream (as in Devon House). And then on Wednesday (June 7) I read the following letter in the Gleaner:

Indignity. Prison visitors treated with indignity. Treated in a contemptuous, insulting, humiliating manner.

Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, Kingston

This is not an isolated experience or complaint, and it isn’t to say that all staff within corrections and remand treat visitors contemptuously. But it is to say that there is a systemic problem which often makes it difficult for family members to maintain meaningful contact with a relative who has been incarcerated, though undeniably such contact can be vital to the prisoner, the family, a process of rehabilitation and eventual reintegration into society.

One comment following the letter online points to a similar situation experienced at Fort Augusta, the women’s prison…

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