EFFECTIVE TODAY, remandees being held at the Horizon Adult Remand Centre on Spanish Town Road in Kingston will be permitted one visit per week from their family members and friends.
Visits will be allowed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of each week between 9:00 a.m. and noon, and 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., and has been structured by way of remandees' surnames. Wednesdays were previously regular visiting days.
A release issued on the weekend by the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), which now has official control over the remand centre, said those remandees with surnames beginning with the letters A-F will be allowed visits on Mondays, G-N on Wednesdays, and O-Z on Fridays. Visitors will be expected to present authentic forms of identification such as passport, driver's license, national voter's registration card and, what the JDF said, are "other acceptable forms of identification."
Visits will not be permitted on public holidays. All visitors will be searched on entry and exit.
The JDF was put in charge of the Centre after Ricardo Lawrence, nicknamed 'God-zilla', escaped from the newly-refurbished $440 million facility on July 7, by using a rope made from bed linen to lower himself from the second floor to the ground. Guards prevented other prisoners from escaping.
Before the break-out, there were claims that the "highly-secured" Centre would significantly reduce prison breaks.
Prior to the escape, the Remand Centre was in the news with reports of conflicts involving warders and inmates, of locks being incorrectly installed and a lack of water, food, and equipment.
Officials from the Broward County Correctional Service in South Florida were brought to Jamaica, recently, to assist local prison officials to design ways to strengthen security measures at the Centre. At that time, only attorneys-at-law were permitted to meet with inmates.
The Horizon Remand Centre was officially opened last November by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, who said then that the problems of overcrowding and escapes from the island's penal institutions would be significantly reduced
