The Gambia’s main prison facility is still unable to stem prisoner escapes despite the penitentiary being fortified by armed security.
Mile II is home to several inmates but the inadequacy of human and material resources is seriously testing the ability of our prison administration to cope and rise to the challenges of prison security, hygiene, food, and other human rights issues.
The current director general of the Gambia Prisons Services is on record for saying Mile II was not built for correction.
And, he’s right!
Looking at the prison’s infrastructure, one needn’t look far to realize that Mile II was indeed built for punishment.
Despite this realization, the prison’s authorities and government have not been seen to be doing much in transforming the prison into a place for correction rather than retribution.
Not so long ago, it had to take the intervention of the human rights committee of the National Assembly Select Committee for life to be better for some Mile II inmates.
The committee found out in one of its fact-finding, tours at the prison that some detention cells in the facility were chokeholds.
Lack of adequate ventilation was one of some of the transgressions they discovered at Mile II.
It’ll interest you to know that up to 2021, Mile II had no CCTV cameras.
Food is not also terrific and it should improve even though we know life at Mile II is not like life at Kairaba beach hotel.
But if you cannot serve them a three-course meal, a square meal a day is recommended by us here at The Voice.
Prisons hygiene should not be relegated to the bottom of the prison’s agenda.
We hope and expect that inmates of Mile II and other prisons will not complain of bedbug infestations and rude interruption of sleep by uninvited rodents this year.
