Monrovia Central Prison Overcrowded

The 2012 U.S. Government’s Human Rights Report has revealed that during the period under review, prison officials threatened prisoners’ lives, and prisoners were raped by other prisoners. The Report quoted the Liberian Bureau of Corrections as saying that approximately half of the country’s 1,930 prisoners were at Monrovia Central Prison (MCP).

This prison operated at more than twice its capacity because of the continuing large number of pretrial detainees. The total prison capacity of MCP was an estimated 400, but it held 989 individuals at year’s end. The prison population included 15 women and 25 juveniles. Prisons remained understaffed, and prison staff were poorly paid.

The Report cited inadequate food, sanitation, ventilation, cooling, lighting, basic and emergency medical care, and potable water contributed to harsh, sometimes life-threatening, conditions in the country’s 15 prisons and detention centers.

Medical care at Monrovia Central Prison and other facilities was inadequate.

According to the Report, NGOs provided antiseizure and mental health medications, but other needed medications, including those for malaria and tuberculosis, were replenished only when the stock of that medication was completely depleted. Since replenishment sometimes took weeks or months, inmates went without medication for lengthy periods.

Observers noted that health care remained underfunded, and many persons, in prison or not, lacked basic healthcare and medications.

The Bureau of Corrections reported 10 prisoner deaths during the year. Seven resulted from illnesses associated with poor prison conditions and three from inmate violence.

Authorities held men and women in separate cells throughout the country. In some counties and cities with just one detention center, officials held juveniles with adults and pretrial detainees with convicts.
Pretrial Detention Still A Problem

Although the law provides for the right of a defendant to receive an expeditious trial, lengthy pretrial and prearraignment detentions  remained serious problems, the Report said.

It noted that an estimated 78 percent of prisoners were pretrial detainees, despite the release of 710 during the year by the Fast Track Court and 26 by the probation program to reduce overcrowding.
The length of time police held detainees in pretrial detention averaged three to six months.

Incarceration of new detainees kept prisons overcrowded. In some cases the length of pretrial detention exceeded the maximum length of sentence that could be imposed for the alleged crime. Judicial inefficiency, corruption, insufficient transport and court facilities and poorly trained attorneys and judges contributed to trial delays.