Her Majesty’s Inspectorate has now published (on Thursday 25 June 2015) the report of its scheduled re-inspection of Her Majesty’s Cayman Islands Prison Service which occurred in early 2015.
The Inspection Team spent 10 days on island during which time they toured facilities, interviewed staff of all ranks, attended classes, interviewed prisoners, reviewed official records and observed the operations of both Prisons.
Some areas in which positive change was noted are as follows:
• Low incidence of violence.
• Improved perimeter security at Northward.
• A robust Complaints Procedure is in place with quality control measures to ensure timely attention to all submissions.
• Low incidence of use of force.
• Newly renovated Juvenile Unit.
• Strong faith and religious programs meeting the varied needs of prisoners.
• Improved educational and vocational opportunities for prisoners.
• Learning resources available.
• Robust Release on Temporary License (ROTL) program.
• Employability skills courses available.

Work is still required in many areas and some issues like the failing physical infrastructure will require a major capital investment from the Government to attain a passing score. In anticipation of this the Prison has commissioned a full estate evaluation from a company with extensive expertise in this area.

The Prison Management will continue to focus on improvements that can be achieved with existing resources with the goal of attaining best practice in corrections in all areas.

Her Majesty’s Cayman Islands Prison Service underwent its first external inspection in over 10 years in July 2012. This inspection resulted from a request from the Ministry of Home Affairs, facilitated by the Governor’s Office. The purpose was to benchmark the Prison Service against established “Healthy Prison” standards. The inspection covers four broad areas including Safety, Respect, Gainful Activity and Resettlement. The Inspection Team from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate visited HMP Northward and Fairbanks initially and produced a scathing report.
One of the first steps taken by the Ministry to address the substandard operations of the Prison Service was to recruit a new Director. As a result Mr. Neil Lavis was hired from the UK Prison Service where he was a long serving Prison Governor with a reputation for turning around failing prisons. Mr. Lavis came on board in June 2013 and has been working tirelessly with his team at the Prison to address the shortcomings of the service which were identified in the Inspection Report.

See also iNews Cayman story published June 25 2015 “Latest inspection report on Cayman Islands prisons made public – still poor but things are improving” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/latest-inspection-report-on-cayman-islands-prisons-made-public-still-poor-but-things-are-improving/