Admiral Town Police Station jail said unfit for young detainees

THE Admiral Town Police Station lock-up in Kingston has been declared unfit to house juvenile detainees after a youth allegedly suffered a rat bite there, sparking an investigation by the Office of the Children's Advocate.

"The Admiral Town lock-up is not suitable for (adults) much less juveniles. It's dark and dingy and dirty... Whatever needs to happen for them (the children at the facility) in terms of a place (to go) needs to happen," Gloria Thompson, an investigator with the Office of the Children's Advocate, told the Observer during a site visit to the lock-up yesterday.

"Some priority needs to be given to these children to get them out. They are in there without light for the whole day and night, and there is no fresh air for them. It is really just not suitable," she added.

Thompson said if children continued to be housed at that lock-up, there would be little hope of successfully rehabilitating them over the long term.

"Even though they say they have retrofitted Admiral Town (lock-up) for juveniles, it is still unacceptable. It is still way beyond an acceptable state for children. The facility is not amenable to them; the garbage is still there and they are sleeping on the concrete, and that's the bedding because there is no mattress or anything," she complained.

"There is no rehabilitation. The correctional facility is supposed to rehabilitate the children. They can only become hardened criminals in a place like that. So, much haste needs to (made) by the officers and/or by the officials to fit them in at Metcalfe Street since that was retrofitted for them," Thompson added.

 The Metcalfe Street Juvenile Remand Centre in Denham Town - worked on by the Engineer Regiment of the Jamaica Defence Force at a cost of $190 million - opened its doors to 47 boys from the Stony Hill Remand Centre last month. It is intended to house all 101 juveniles who were up to April this year being held in police lock-ups across the island.

Claudette Pious, head of Children First - an independent non-governmental organisation dedicated to youths aged three to 18 - added her voice to the call for youths to be removed post-haste from the Admiral Town Police Station lock-up.

"The children need to be removed from there and that is the long and short of it. I am not saying the authorities are not doing what they have to do, but do they have the capacity to do what they need to do in the best interest of the child?" said Pious.

"If they don't have staff and if they don't have resources, (it is) understandable, but at the end of the day, we can't take the child in for care and protection and a rat a go bite the pickney," she added.

The 14-year-old rat-bite victim was taken to doctor last Sunday, but only had his prescription filled yesterday when Pious took it on herself to do it. His parents, the Children First boss said, were not able to afford the medication.

Meanwhile, with the exception of the 14-year-old who is in lock-up for uncontrollable behaviour, juveniles at the Admiral Town lock-up are facing charges of shooting, robbery and murder, according to Superintendent Terrence Bent, head of the Kingston Western Police Division.

Still, he admitted that the facilities were less than ideal for juveniles.

"We will be happy to stop putting juveniles there when they tell us where to put them. Unless the Government gives us the tools to work with, we have to work with what we have," Bent told the Observer.

 "Every week I write a report indicating that we have juveniles in custody and these reports indicate that we have spoken to all of the relevant agencies - the CDA, the Children's Registry - and the situation remains unchanged. So I don't have a problem with them saying we shouldn't have the children there, as long as they tell us where to put them," he added.

According to Bent, he welcomed the day when juveniles were no longer held in police lock-ups in Jamaica, especially those not facing charges.

"The facility that we have here has no sort of recreational, educational situation. The police force was not designed for that... it is to hold prisoners. So if the state is really genuine about children and child care development, they would have made enough spaces to hold the juveniles, especially those who are not charged," he said.

In the interim, Bent said the police simply have to make do.

"The police have been asked to do something and we are trying our best to ensure that the juveniles get the best care that we can possibly offer them. We do this with great constraint at Admiral Town. But are we using what we have been given to work with. We try to keep the place clean and habitable," he said. 

Source: Jamaica Observer