Georgetown Prison likely to be shut down- Jagdeo

Last Updated on Thursday, 20 April 2023, 18:15 by Denis Chabrol

The Georgetown Prison. Note vehicles passing on D’urban Street on 20th April, 2023.

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday said government was mulling the eventual closure of the centuries-old Georgetown Prison on Camp Street, and already the prison population there has already been reduced.

“I don’t know whether we’ll shut it down totally yet but the idea is soon most of the prisoners will be out of there so we have not made a formal decision as yet but it seems as though it’s heading that way,” he told a news conference.

Unofficially, Demerara Waves Online News has been informed that cells that had been purchased under the David Granger-led administration to construct three 20-cell buildings at the Camp Street location have been taken to the Lusignan Prison.

Mr Jagdeo declined to immediately say whether the land would be sold if the prison is closed, as no decision has been made. In clear reference to the reopening of D’urban Street between Camp and John  Streets to vehicular traffic after more than 10 years, he said that security measure had negatively impacted on business there based on frequent complaints. “I know that locking down the road has affected a lot of the business around the area. They complain a lot about when you lock off the road, it’s affect their businesses, he said.

“We are building a modern prison and in that prison we’re having a school for compulsory schooling and then a trade school too,” he said.

The colonial-era wooden prison buildings were destroyed by fire on July, 2017, leaving behind the concrete block which is currently now housing a number of inmates.