Mentally ill prisoners

HOPEFULLY, IT has not just fallen through the cracks or become just another of those Jamaican nine-day wonders. But it is more than three years since the delivery of the report, commissioned by Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, on ways to better manage mentally ill patients who come in contact with the criminal justice system. There has been little public discussion on its findings or signal from the Government of what it has done, or intends to do, about them – especially with respect to its recommendation for the establishment of a dedicated forensic psychiatric facility.

In 2020, the committee that produced the report declared the matter to be urgent. Recent developments in the courts, albeit different from the issue that Justice Sykes set out to review, remind us that the matter remains outstanding – and urgent.

The question of how the justice system deals with mentally ill people previously gained significant public attention in 2020 when the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) – the agency that polices the conduct of members of the security forces – reported the harrowing case of Noel Chambers.

INDECOM discovered Mr Chambers, 81, in prison – his emaciated body riddled with bedsores and bites from vermin. He soon died afterwards.

AT PLEASURE OF THE COURT

Mr Chambers was in jail for 40 years, remanded “at the pleasure of the court”. He was initially determined “unfit to plead”. He became lost in the system because no one paid attention, notwithstanding the legal requirement that the correctional services submit to the court monthly reports on the status of each prisoner remanded at its pleasure.

At the time, of 146 inmates remanded at the court’s pleasure, 15 were in jail for at least 30 years, and one for as long as a half-century.

In the midst of that latest bout of hand-wringing over this situation, prison officials were upbraided. There were demands for the reporting regime to be adhered to. And Justice Sykes established his task force with the intention of driving substantial reform.

It would be expected that by now, no long-term prisoners, except in the most exceptional prisoners, would be languishing in jail because they were unfit to plead or the matter was not determined. The older ones, at least, would have been released to family and friends so they could receive the treatment they lacked in prison.

However, there was the surprising report last week of Isaiah Palmer, 71, for whom a St Catherine parish judge ordered a forensic psychiatric evaluation in furtherance of his ability to plead.

Now deaf and with impaired vision, Mr Palmer has been in jail for nearly half a century, having been arrested for murder in 1976. His last appearance in court was in September 2023. Apparently, his files cannot be found.

So Isaiah Palmer has not been convicted of a crime, but for 48 years, he has remained in an environment where help for his mental-health challenges is limited – more so than what would be possible in a community.

Further, in court last week, the judge presiding over a case in which a mentally ill man killed his wife was concerned that care facilities for mentally ill offenders were “at best limited and at worst nonexistent” in prisons.

BALANCE

Such a situation will provide a conundrum in sentencing, given the judge’s obligation, as he pointed out, to balance the accused person’s needs, the broader public interest, and safety.

These are among the issues that exercised the committee that Chief Justice Sykes asked to look into the matter, given that forensic psychiatric care ended at Kingston’s Bellevue Hospital over four decades ago and no one believes that it is appropriate for it to resume there.

“There is an urgent need for a forensic psychiatric facility/hospital,” said the committee, which also suggested the start of training to build capacity, including collaboration with courts.

The administration will probably argue that it is unable, at this time, to afford such a facility. That is untenable.

Leaving mentally ill people in prisons with insufficient medical-health support infringes fundamental human rights and demeans and diminishes the Jamaican society. Which, of course, is the same when other prisoners are kept in correctional centres that are akin to Dickensian workhouses.

The Government has in hand a proposal from private investors to build and operate a modern prison on a BOOT (build, own, operate, transfer) model at an annual cost to the State similar to what it spends to maintain the existing facilities. This newspaper has urged the Government to seriously discuss the offer. Perhaps a forensic psychiatric wing could be part of that prison.