Western prison faces closure

National

By MARJORIE FINKEO
THE Justice Department in Western dealing with prisoners and remandees may be put on hold for a while as authorities try to sort out the Daru prison.
The prison was condemned by health authorities because of sanitation issues and given 10 days until today to move out the prisoners there.
However, Correctional Services Commissioner Stephen Pokanis said they would ask the health authorities to give them another 10 days to allow a technical team from Port Moresby to go and assess the sanitation problems before maintenance work could start.
“We are having fears that where will be the new convicted prisoners accommodated when sent from court, we will have to make proper dialogue with police, health authorities and other prison institutes on how best we can move prisoners out,”he said.
Pokanis said the prison management understood that the situation was critical and they needed to attend to it quickly because there was a high possibility of cholera and other sicknesses starting there.
He said when the prison was closed, they could try to move the convicted prisoners in prison to Bomana and keep remanded prisoners in Daru, with warders looking after them.
“The remanded prisoners will have to stay back because they need to attend to court, we will also talk with the provincial police commander on how best we can maintain the justice system to continue work.”

One thought on “Western prison faces closure

  • Very sad scenario for this very important institution where prisoners are rehabilitated before being released back to the communities has now been condemned by the Health Authorities due its deteriorating conditions unfit for human occupancy. Successive Governments have turned a blind eye to this institution and that its condemnation has now added an additional cost of transferring prisoners apart from the renovation task ahead.

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