Joint Overseas Prison Talks Continue
As Bernews first reported back in April, there is talk of a shared regional prison for British Overseas Territories to incarcerate high security prisoners.
Cayman Premier McKeeva Bush said in early April 2010:
I am going to propose to my colleagues that we develop a regional prison for serious crime that will be in a country outside of the territories. All of us would put our funds in to get an outside prison.
This proposal has since been discussed further, as following the Overseas Territory meeting yesterday Premier Dr Ewart Brown said:
There was some talk of a regional high security prison, it’s an issue we may take to the UK Government. I would imagine if the concept were to go forward and if interest was expressed by independent countries, it would be entertained.
In early April 2010 the Bermuda Government stated that they, specifically Public Safety Minister Colonel David Burch, were looking into the feasibility of transferring prisoners abroad, something Bermuda has previously done.
Premier Dr Brown had previously mentioned, that whether fairly or unfairly some people say that “Bermuda prisons are less then prisons”. A former prisoner of both Bermuda’s Westgate Prison, as well as a Caribbean prison provided us with a stark comparison of the conditions of both prisons.
Bermuda spends an average of approximately $80,000 per prisoner per year, and it not clear yet whether a regional shared prison could result in a cost savings to Bermuda.
Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory along with 13 other jurisdictions; Anguilla, the British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, St Helena, Turks and Caicos, Pitcairn Island, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, and the Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus. We are the largest of these territories population wise.
Wow, a high-security prison that holds the worst offenders from all the British Overseas Territories. Sounds like something out of a movie! I can see it now — a man wrongly accused of a murder he didn’t commit is sent to a remote and desolate island where a twisted warden forces the prisoners to fight for his entertainment. What action star could put on a convincing Bermudian accent?