Speed up cases: Nangoi

The National Main Stories

POLICE have been urged to speed up the processing of court cases so that people are not remanded for too long in prison, and end up escaping, an official says.
Correctional Service Minister Chris Nangoi was responding to the breakout from Buimo prison in Lae on Friday in which 11 escapees were shot dead, one was recaptured and 37 on the run.
Of the escapees, 35 were on remand awaiting their court cases, with nine of them shot dead while escaping.
“Most of the escapees are innocent and are yet to be proven guilty in court,” Nangoi said.
“The State is taking away lives of those innocent remand prisoners.”
He said people on remand had been suffering in silence as they awaited their trial.
Nangoi suggests that:

  • PEOPLE on remand should not be accepted into any prison without a completed court file. This excludes those charged with murder, rape and attempted murder. They should be kept in police cells until all police files are completed;
  • THE District Court and Committal Court must reject incomplete court files by police;
  • A warrant of remand must not be given to police until a completed court file is presented;
  • CASES for summary offences should be processed within a month;
  • INDICTABLE offences should be processed within three months;
  • ALL level four prisons must have a court house and a magistrate. Judges can do court circuits;
  • POLICE bail must be applicable to all summary offences; and,
  • MINOR crime offenders take up space in prisons and cost the state to feed and manage them.

Nangoi, the member for Sumkar, questioned the quality of the training given to police prosecutors and investigators.

7 comments

  • Minister Nangoi you are a current CIS cabinet Minister. I thought you are addressing your colleagues ministers in cabinet. Its about time a minister is speakng out his mind openly but we want more from you. We cannot blame the continues jail break out on outstanding cases alone. We need to tighten up prison fences and monitoring systems and above all improve the relationships between remandees and CIS officers and lastly getting rid of “prison soaps”

  • It is not about pointing figures, It is all about fixing a problem, do we have improvements plan once a problem is identified, simple plans like how do we remove a sick person from a crowd for treatment, there should be simple process in place remove one or two out of the crowd, if that simple plan not working, whats the next, always talk about improving, not about pointing figures, use what ever resource you have to fix the problems, enough is enough hearing prisoners breaking out of jail…….

  • its about time minister is responding to break out cases it better he takes it to his colleague members in parliament so proper laws to be made in regards to the escapes in stead of killing them.+

  • Being warden officer is not to kill, if cant control them,let them go, they can be rearrested, you are paid for doing a diligent job, but here you become a murderer, taking in the place of murderer who came into serve their sentence, now you are murderer swiping your job with someone whom you deserved to protect.

  • Hi fellow Papua New Guineans,

    Most of the current Ministers in the current government don’t seem to do their jobs properly or a handicapped by unknown reasons I would say or are not sharing or making public what their office is doing as a mandated office so that people could be aware of what is happening or their progress during their term. I have not seen any plans to fix this issue of jail breaks as it happens every year and this is one of the major contributing factors to our law and order problem as lots of fugitives are moving around freely in our communities. My recommendations is to change a minister or a commissioner or put more money and effort in or set guidelines and deadlines for individual or several departments to work together in hand in hand on this issues. I think Minister Nangoi should not be pointing fingers at Police and Courts but they all must work together to reduce the gravity of this problem.

    Just My Thoughts

  • I agree that incompetence on the part of the police is causing an overcrowding in holding cells and prisons. A number of serious cases are been dismissed by the courts because police reports were missing or incomplete! Can something be done to rectify this?

  • Police officers are 12 drop outs. what entry tests and exams have they passed to write proper report effectively and keep the professionalism in their duty.
    After pass out from Bomana, they come out with words like Kaikai kan… people fear them not protected. now they compromise with street vendors, see what is happening at 4 mile.

Comments are closed.