Person shot by police not a detainee, says commissioner

By MICHELLE AUAMOROMORO
CORRECTIONAL Services (CS) Commissioner Stephen Pokanis has clarified that the person who was shot and killed by police in East New Britain was not a detainee who escaped from Kerevat Jail on April 28.
Pokanis said of the 11 detainees who escaped, only four had been recaptured.
“The person shot dead was a criminal operating around Kokopo area and not a detainee,” he said.
Pokanis also confirmed that there have been three jail breakouts so far this year with the biggest from Baisu jail in Western Highlands where 103 inmates escaped.
Buimo jail in Morobe had a breakout where 17 prisoners escaped while 11 escaped from the latest breakout at Kerevat.
Pokanis said the investigations at Buimo prison had been completed and the reports from the Baisu prison were received on May 1.
“From the findings of the investigations done at Buimo and Baisu, the escapes occurred because of lack of performance from the (prison) officers,” Pokanis said.
“The officers were not there when the prisoners escaped from the prison.”
The findings also showed infrastructural problems as one of the reasons for the jail breakouts but Pokanis believed that the escapes were mainly due to a lack of monitoring and supervision by the officers.
“The escapes occurred mainly from lack of monitoring by the officers who are on duty, supervisors not supervising the duty officers to make sure they are at their posts, making sure officers on duty are patrolling the area, and checking and making sure that everything is secured,” he said.
“That is the type of work that we are supposed to do but the officers did not follow these simple protocols to prevent escapes.
“Prisoners know, they see and they can only wait for that opportunity and once that opportunity is available to them, they dash for freedom.”
Meanwhile, the restrictions on prison visitations nationwide have been lifted and families were allowed to visit detainees upon instructions that one visitor is allowed to visit one detainee.
However, Pokanis said it would depend on commanding officers of each prison to decide the number.