The Pointe Blanche prison was in focus during a law enforcement debate in the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament on Monday (see related story). Chris van Dam of coalition party CDA presented a motion for the Kingdom Council of Ministers –dominated by Netherlands – to take over the detention policy of St. Maarten at its own expense for five years, on which a vote is scheduled for June 30.
State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops advised against it and wants to give the current government in Philipsburg the benefit of the doubt, because 27 million Netherlands Antillean guilders has been budgeted to build a prison. He also indicated that progress in this regard would become part of conditions for future COVID-19 liquidity support loans.
Justice Minister Anna Richardson said in Friday’s paper that she and her team since taking office two months ago have been working diligently on improvement of the existing penitentiary damaged by Hurricane Irma and planning for a new one. She argued that “having state-of-the art facility without adequate daytime activities and programmes for detainees does not help the community and will be ineffective, as offenders do not have the opportunity to better themselves while serving their sentences.”
The point is well-taken, but it’s also obvious that pressure to make some serious headway in this matter is mounting from different angles including criminal case lawyers as again reported in today’s edition. The good part is that the minister did not outright reject the idea behind the announced motion, reasoning that any positive contribution to overcoming challenges the country faces is an opportunity to move forward.
That is the correct attitude to have, especially since it was claimed that The Hague “repeatedly” offered logistical assistance, but this had been ignored. If more use can be made of such outside resources in term of knowledge and expertise it could help speed up things considerably.
From both a human rights and public safety perspective, the present situation cannot continue much longer. It is high time to fix the prison and that should be the ultimate main goal of all involved.
