US$8m IDB project to help ease overcrowded jails

A US$8 million project approved by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will help Guyana ease prison overcrowding by reducing pre-trial detentions and increasing the use of alternative sentencing, among other measures.

A release yesterday from the IDB said that the loan’s objective is to address the high concentrations of prison population in the country, which stands at 256 per 100,000 of national population, well above the world average of 146 per 100,000. The release said that the Guyanese criminal justice system tends to use incarceration as the default sanction.

The project is divided into two parts. The first component seeks to reduce the use of pretrial detention, especially for individuals accused of minor offences.

A second component seeks to increase the use of alternative sentencing by the criminal justice system in Guyana.

This includes strengthening the country’s legal drafting functions, modernizing probation services and implementing a pilot project at the Magistrate’s Court level to apply alternatives to imprisonment to nonviolent offenders.

The US$8 million loan is divided in two parts. Four million dollars is financed via the IDB’s ordinary capital, has a 30-year amortization period and an interest rate based on Libor. The remaining US$4 million is through the IDB’s subsidized lending arm. It has a 40-year amortization period and a fixed interest rate of 0.25 percent.