Saturday, January 6, 2007

by Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters): Haiti's prisons have grown so crowded prisoners must take turns sleeping as police step up arrests of alleged gangsters blamed for a wave of violence and kidnappings, government and human rights officials said on Friday.

"We're facing a critical situation with our prisons which have no more room to hold prisoners," Haiti's Secretary of State for Public Safety Eucher Luc Joseph told Reuters.

The national penitentiary in the capital, Port-au-Prince, was built to hold 800 prisoners and now houses over 2,000.

"We're experiencing the same situation in all the other prisons and police custodies around the country," Joseph said.

Haitian police have intensified operations against criminal gangs and the number of arrests has increased considerably in the past few months.

The United States has also increased the number of Haitian criminals deported to their homeland to about 100 a month, from 25. Haitian officials said many of those deportees have long criminal records and will be held even though they have not been charged with crimes in Haiti and have already served their sentences in the United States.

"We have to detain those deportees because they pose a threat to the country's national security," said Joseph.

In many prisons, detainees sleep in turn on the floor, live in inhumane conditions and are deprived of adequate medical care, said Renan Hedouville, head of the Haitian Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

"Some prisoners have to stand up, while others sleep for one or two hours before giving up their place to other inmates," Hedouville told Reuters.

"The living conditions in those prisons are in total violation of the principles of human rights."

Government officials acknowledged that the situation in the country's detention centers is critical, but argue that they have an obligation to hold prisoners while they work to change conditions.

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