Over 300 prisoners released due to COVID-19, reduction in jail time

In recent months the Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels has been releasing prisoners in order to reduce the prison’s population due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prisoners are also being released due to a reduction in their jail sentences and bail being posted.

“As it relates to persons who were granted release specifically as it relates to COVID-19, persons who have been granted remission, persons who have been granted reduction in bail and they were able to post bail, persons who would have been placed on self-bail it would amount to somewhere in the vicinity of 350 or even more,” Samuels told the media Monday during a press briefing Monday.

Those released due to COVID-19 would have served one-third of their sentences and they were also selected for release because of good behaviour.

But even as prisoners are being released, Samuels said the prison system continues to deal with daily admission of new prisoners from the courts.

“All persons who are admitted to the prison are subjected to 14-days quarantine, during that period they are examined by the prison medical department and when they are cleared then they are placed into the general population,” the Prisons Director said.

Meanwhile, to ensure that the prisoners have no contact with the deadly virus, Prison Wardens and officers are now living inside the prison compound and there is a strict no entry policy into the prisons during this time and no one is allowed out.