Jamaican Researcher

Are Jamaican Prisoners satisfied with their Human Rights?

As a Human Rights Lobbyist I have a responsibility to learn of and expose the truth about human rights violations. When I spearhead my intervention with female inmates in November 2008, I will be taking with me the Inmate ESR Satisfaction Survey, which I designed to assess the key areas of economic and social satisfaction and dissatisfaction for female inmates.

Jamaica is a country with a colonial past and an entrenched slave heritage and as such Jamaicans see marginalized groups as having less entitlements that others. Prisons are seen as the place for wrong doers, who should get the heaviest hand of the law. It is therefore not surprising that our Government supports carnal punishment and solitary confinement.

Our country men and women do not have a good general knowledge about and strategic approach in defense of their economic and social (ESR) rights. After the largely slave population was emancipated in the middle to late 1800s there was never a system of institutionalizing human rights education and practice within the society. This has led to widespread violation and denial of the rights of various groups in employment, access to social services such as credit, property ownership, health care, enterprise and business, and education.

The absence of institutionalized ESR principles presents problems for those Jamaicans who are: HIV positive, homosexual, children, physically and mentally disabled, elderly, Rastafarian, poor, illiterate, prisoners, young people, living in the inner-city, rural folk, and lacking self confidence and the ability to adequately express themselves.

So to adequately answer my question, Are Jamaican Prisoners satisfied with their Human Rights? I turned to secondary and primary research. The secondary data provided the necessary information to guide me in designing the survey questions, and the completed survey tool will be used to gather primary information about prisoners levels of satisfaction. I used a Likert scale to help me in measuring satisfaction levels with different aspects of ESR. The scale will give me the opportunity to compare satisfaction levels amongst participants in the intervention.

Subsequent to gathering the data and answering the question posed by this post, I will prepare an evaluation report, which will be used as the basis of project proposals on ESR in Jamaican prisons. Additionally, the advocacy component of the intervention will assist in bringing national and institutional attention to ESR violations and improving inmates satisfaction levels with ESR.