𝐊𝐄𝐘 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐅𝐂𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐔𝐄𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒

The Acting Commissioner of Corrections, Sevuloni Naucukidi, Permanent Secretary for Justice, Ms Selina Kuruleca, Chief Magistrate, Mr Josaia Ratumaitavuki, Loraini Seru, ACP Crime, SSP Wate Vocevoce, Director Operations, and Dr Kiran, Superintent St Giles Hospital had a meeting today to discuss pertinent issues relating to the persistent overcrowding situations in the Remand facilities.

The discussions noted that due to overcrowding the remand centres have been overwhelmed with insufficient healthcare and mental health services, lack of resources to provide proper accomodation and food, violence and self harm, contamination and issues around consitent agency coordination were notable deficient areas.

In response the PS Justice recognized the enormous effort exerted by FCS noting in particular the clear imbalance of the approved capacity against the actual in custody. It was noted that while Suva RC had an approved capacity of 200, the actual in custody was 283 average daily, Lautoka RC approved capacity 175 against the actual of 193 while Labasa CC had an approved capacity of 12 but actual was 73.

DCC Moceisuva impressed upon the participants that, “the overcrowding figures exposed the serious latent effects of overcrowding that includes violence, self-harm, collusion and staff absence”. “These are typical challenges that the officers have to grapple with while at the same time ensuring the proper care and security of the facilities” added DCC Moceisuva.

Acting Commissioner, Naucukidi slated that, ” there should be clarity in the information provided for all prisoners sent by courts including their medical records”. This observation came to the forefront because of the different types of sickness such as HIV, TB and chronic diseases which the prisoners acquired before admission.

Permanent Secretary for Justice, Ms Kuruleca, “commended the efforts and dedication of the staff towards the treatment and care of the prisoners noting that some of the challenges exposed were out of reach for FCS to deal with on their own but requires cross sector agencies to combine efforts”.

The Chief Magistrate highlighted that some of the challenges will be addressed with the courts so that at least the burden was narrowed to ease operations and the management of the prisoners.

Key recommendations that emerged out of the meeting include the need to provide conducive facilties, sharing of information, alternative sentencing options, interface the roles of FCS, Judiciary and Police to determine ease of handling cases and a working group to address security gaps while the remandees were enroute from the court to the correctional facilities.

The parties represented agreed that the outcomes from todays meeting would be reviewed next month to evaluate the impact of the strategies to be implemented by the relevant Justice agency.