Ekeomah Atuonwu
Flomo Johnson, the Director of the Grand Gedeh County Prison in Liberia, has expressed concern over a lack of food and water for the county’s dozens of inmates.
He claims that detainees have been sleeping on empty stomachs for the past three weeks, forcing him to travel extra miles or supply from his own pocket to feed them, which he claims does not augur well.
Director Johnson stated that prisoners normally consume between 2 and 5 of the 25 kilogram bags of rice per day while speaking at the formal opening of the 15th Judiciary Circuit Court for the February Term in the county, which brought together a number of stakeholders including local leaders, the county’s legislative caucus, chief and elders, among others.
This he claims, has not been the case for some time, and he has alerted the Justice Ministry through the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation on several times, but to no avail.
“This kind of risky condition poses insecurity to the center, and if solutions are not implemented, this kind of precarious situation poses insecurity to the center,” he added.
The Zwedru prison compound was created in Zwedru, Grand Geedeh County, in 1979 to rehabilitate persons who had been imprisoned for a long time, as well as to empower them via skills training so that they may live meaningfully after their release.
The jail was built in 1978 during the reign of former President William R. Tolbert to house 269 criminals, but the number has already increased, posing a significant feeding problem.
The conditions in Liberia’s jails are so bad that detainees are crammed into dark, filthy cells with no access to food, sanitation, or health care, a violation of inmates’ basic human rights, according to international partners.
As a result of the poor state of the country’s prison facilities, some prisoners suffer permanent bodily or mental harm. What is worse, many of the inmates haven’t been convicted of any crime yet they are being held as pretrial detainees.
According to a recent US Department of State study, food shortages, extreme overcrowding, unsanitary environments and inadequate medical care have led to life-threatening circumstances in Liberian jails.
According to the Ministry of Justice’s Bureau of Corrections and Rehabilitation (BCR), the jail population in the country’s 16 facilities has nearly doubled its planned capacity.
Approximately half of the country’s 2,700 inmates are housed at the Monrovia Central Prison (MCP), originally built for 374 detainees; now holds 1,262 inmates according to the report.
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