AMMAN — Prison authorities are planning a new correctional
facility in Al-Azraq, 100km to the east of Amman “to ease the crowding of other
facilities in the country,” an official said, amid warnings by watchdogs that
the overcrowding might develop into a health disaster in the time of COVID-19.
اضافة اعلان
Director of Correction and Rehabilitation Centers Department
(CRCD) Brig. Gen. Ammar Al-Qudah said in remarks exclusive to Jordan News that “Plans are underway to build a new correctional facility in Azraq with a
capacity of 3,000 inmates to resolve the issue of overcrowding that occurs in
correctional facilities sometimes.”
Despite procedures taken by the Public Security Directorate
to prevent the spread of coronavirus among prisoners, who now number around
19,000, former inmates and advocates say the situation has not improved
significantly.
Police announced the anti-COVID-19 measures at a press
conference in February, when an ex-detainee rose to protest, complaining of the
overcrowding and a lack of hygiene.
Other former inmates interviewed by Jordan News confirmed these claims.
“The safety precautions are for the officers, not for us,”
said Abu Osama, an inmate who spent three months in Bab Al-Hawa correctional
center during the pandemic, in an interview last month.
“The masks were for them (the correctional officers). The
hand sanitizer was for them; all of it is just for them. There were 27 inmates
in the cell and 18 beds,” said Abu Osama, who spent June to September of 2020
in the center.
“The notion of personal hygiene is nonexistent for prisoners
because the sanitary products the prisoners need, like soap and sanitizer, some
inmates cannot afford and unfortunately they are sold in the canteen at double
the price they should be,” said Abdullah Al-Nasser, managing director of the
Aftercare Center for Released Prisoners.
“They only handed out five bars of soap once during my stay
there,” said Abu Osama, “Five bars of soap for 27 inmates for 3 months. We used
up those five bars in four days. After that we had to buy [cheaper] dish soap
and laundry detergent.”
But things have changed, according to Qudah, who said the
planned Azraq facility is the right answer to the overcrowding problem in the
long run, while steps have been taken already to address the current situation.
Qudah underlined that “at the correctional facilities, we
strive to commit to the health and preventive protocols to ensure that the
virus would not spread. Random samples are taken and infected individuals are
isolated in separate facilities, in addition to isolating suspected cases for
14 days as per the health protocol.
“New inmates are admitted to four facilities designated to
receive newcomers where they spend two weeks and tested.”
Meanwhile, 20,000 online court sessions took place to
minimize contact and transportation procedures, “which minimizes chances of
exposure to the virus”, the brigadier general said. The measure provides an
answer to concerns that transporting defendants in prison cars, and locking
them up in court cells packed with people on trial from different prisons,
amplified the danger of contracting the disease.
The figures speak for themselves, according to Qudah, who
stressed that the number of positive cases does not exceed 1.8 percent out of
the total current number of inmates and detainees of 19,000, accommodated in 16
prisons for men and two for women.
The officer stopped short of revealing the capacity limit of
the country’s prisons, but Nahla Al-Momani, the protection commissioner at the
National Center for Human Rights, said it was around 13,000 in 2019.
There have been worries that if vaccination does not start
inside prisons, the risk of the spread of the virus would be higher. Brig. Gen.
Qudah announced that “coordination is underway with the relevant agencies to
provide inmates with the COVID-19 vaccines.”
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