Buimo jail overflowing

OVERCROWDING at the Buimo Prison in Lae has put a strain on the jail’s ability to take care of prisoners, says its commander Supt Felix Namane.
The commander was forced to clarify the situation after a former inmate, who was released recently, said the overpopulated prison has having problems with diseases and the jail was in poor condition.
Michael Karapen, 49, from Kerowagi, Chimbu, raised the issue on Wednesday on behalf of those who remain in prison.
Namane said Buimo Prison was built to hold a maximum of 600 prisoners at any one time, but at the moment it was holding 976.
“This is made up of 550 convicts and 426 remandees,” Namane said.
“So you can see this is putting a great constraint on our budget.
“We have to feed this big group of prisoners three times a day.”
Namane said the administration and operation costs of the prison were expensive.
He said that at the moment the prison’s only funding source was the Correctional Services headquarters in Port Moresby.
He said funds were given on an “ad hoc basis”, depending on requests put forward by the prison management.
“Buimo needs at least K1 million annually to successfully manage its affairs,” Namane said.
“With the festive period coming up, I am expecting the number of inmates to increase from 976 to more than 1000.”
Namane said police could continue to arrest many people but there was no space at the prison to lock them up in because the cellblocks were full to capacity.
He said the mass escape of inmates from the prison in March this year and the previous two escapes in 2015 and 2016 were in part due to overcrowding.