There has been only five reports of sexual abuse in the country's correctional system in seven years. That was the account given to a joint select committee of Parliament on Wednesday by Major Richard Reese, Commissioner of Corrections.

Major Reese told the committee, considering new sexual offences legislation that since 2000 there had been three such reports in the adult correctional centres (all males) and two from juvenile facilities.

"All those cases have proven inconclusive, however, the department has taken certain measures to improve service delivery and safe custody of inmates" he told the committee, chaired by Senator A.J Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney-General.

Committee member Olivia 'Babsy' Grange appeared to be taken aback by the low reporting level, but Senator Nicholson said this was not surprising to him, given the associated stigma and risks.

Unwilling to report abuses

Whilst accepting that an inmate who still had time left to serve in the institution might be unwilling to report such abuses, Senator Trevor McMillan asked whether outgoing inmates did exit interviews and, if so, whether there was greater candour in those interviews.

Major Reese confirmed that exit interviews were conducted, as a routine matter, but he did not shed any further light on the specific issue of sexual abuse in the prisons, arising from those interviews.

The prison boss was responding, in part, to recent newspaper reports pertaining to the experience of a prison inmate. The inmate related the harrowing ordeal of being sexually assaulted by six men in his cell at the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre (formerly General Penitentiary) a few years ago. The prisoner alleged that the situation only got worse for him after he reported his ordeal to unsympathetic warders at the institution.

That incident is now the subject of an investigation, Major Reese told the committee, promising that areport would be made public when the inquiry is completed.

Asked by Miss Grange about the current policy regarding homosexuals in prisons, Major Reese confirmed that there is a system in place which seeks to segregate inmates based on sexual orientation, for their protection.

"Inmates declare their sexual orientation on admission and their housing arrangement is treated accordingly. This has been a strategy that has been employed for a number of years and has been quite successful in reducing, if not eliminating incidents of violence against persons with certain sexual orientations", he said.

The issue of homosexuality in Jamaican prisons grabbed international headlines in 1999 and 2001 when more than a dozen inmates, accused of being homosexuals, were murdered by other prisoners.

Major Reese told the committee that the segregation policy was not confined to the protection of homosexuals. Special housing arrangements are also made for inmates who are mentally ill or who are carriers of contagious diseases, he said.

Major Reese told The Gleaner yesterday that a study in 2006 on HIV and Sexual Transmitted Infections (STI) at the Tower Hill Adult Correctional Centre indicated that HIV was less than 4 per cent of the total prison population.

The study was conducted by a team from Johns Hopkins University in the United States. Major Reese said the results of this study compares favourably with previously issued figures of 12 per cent by the Ministry of Health, and eight per cent by Dr. Raymoth Notice who formerly worked as a medical doctor in the prison system.

The results of this Johns Hopkins University study he said compares favourably with other jurisdictions.The Commissioner of Corrections explained that the international convention is that the rate of infection among prisoners is supposed to be double that of the country's population. He said the figures recorded by the Johns Hopkins University researchers confirm that the primary health care strategies of the correctional services are working. He pointed out that the primary health care strategies does not include the promotion of condom use. Buoyed by this success, he said, the correctional services will be expanding its Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme to other adult correctional institutions.