Glenda Anderson, Staff Reporter
UP TO AUGUST 2001, the Department of Correctional Services said there were 317 mentally ill persons, but the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights (IJCHR) insists there at least 500, in the island's prisons, mostly on petty charges.
Meanwhile large numbers of mentally ill persons detained under the Government's justice system are unable to go home because family members or relatives have refused or are unwilling to take them in.
The number which now stands at 'well over 100' according to IJCHR Secretary, Nancy Anderson, has been causing great concern for legal aid officials.
"The families are reluctant or afraid to take them back home for different reasons. There are some whose families are now into second and third generations and so often have no recollection of these persons. There are some relatives too who do not have the resources to care for them sufficiently, in terms of buying medication, so they will not accept them even after you have located them and made contact," she said.
Attempts at getting support from external agencies, she said, were also proving futile.
"There is literally no-where else to turn, we have checked every almshouse on the island, gotten in touch with churches and relatives and have only been able to place a few of these detainees."
Ms. Anderson explained that the group consists of persons who were detained in lock-ups or prisons across the island because the courts found them 'unfit to plead'.
"They are called prisoners but really they are not because they were never given a hearing."
Some had been shunted around from one system to the next and never had their case reviewed.
In September 2001, a group of final-year students from the Norman Manley Law School undertook a project to identify and assist with expediting cases involving mentally ill persons in lock-ups.
"There are many persons currently been detained in Jamaica's penal institutions on the basis that they were suspected or found "unfit to plead" at the time of their trial. These persons are considered mentally ill. Some of them were sentenced as unfit to plead as early as 1967," coordinator of the group, Sanya Young explained.
"Through the initiative of the Legal Aid Council and the Department of Correctional Services, a list of such inmates were compiled with a view to bringing them back to the courts where they can have their cases properly disposed of."
Ms. Young said that the group found and interviewed 38 detainees at the Tower Street Correctional Centre alone between the periods, October 29, 2001 to November 19, 2001. For some individuals the cases had been on record since 1967.
Last Wednesday another group of student researchers conducted initial interviews with a further 35 detainees at the St. Catherine Correctional Centre.
The research project has three phases; interviewing inmates, submitting questionnaires and legal aid forms to the Legal Aid Council, contacting relatives of the inmates and calling the court. "The interviews were conducted in order to ascertain the details of their charges, the length and nature of their stay, medical and personal history."
The interviews she said were necessary as often prison records for the persons were not 'up to date'.
