Bermuda Department of Corrections
Bermuda Department of Corrections, formerly Her Majesty's Prison Service, Bermuda, is the agency charged with managing the prisons within the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. It is a part of the Ministry of National Security and is headquartered in Hamilton. In 2002, the Government of Bermuda renamed the HM Prisons to Correctional Facilities. At the same time, HM Prison Service was renamed The Department of Corrections. It is the only prison/corrections force within the British Overseas Territories and United Kingdom that uses the "Corrections" title rather than the more usual "HM Prison Service" as is customary.
History
HM Prison Service was part of the Bermuda Government, and a separate organisation from His Majesty's Prison Service, which manages most of the prisons within England and Wales. The service operated a number of prisons and facilities in Bermuda, which included a Junior Training School for young offenders and a maximum security prison in the former Casemates Naval Barracks at the Royal Naval Dockyard, which was closed in the 1990s and replaced with the Westgate Correctional Facility. The service also operated the Pendle Hill Prison Farm for low-risk convicts and a Co-Educational Facility for female offenders, both of which are still in use at Ferry Reach, St. George's Parish.The service suffered a number of scandals, including the imprisonment on 14 May 1953, for twelve months of the Warden of Prisons, Albert James Croke, after his conviction for thefts related to irregularities during his term in office. Croke, a former Royal Marines Sergeant, had served in the Bermuda Police Force from 1937 until his joining HM Prisons, Bermuda, in 1942. He had occupied the post of Warden since 1947.
A riot broke out in the Hamilton Prison on the day of his incarceration as other convicts believed he was receiving preferential treatment. The rioters were subdued with teargas and batons by the Bermuda Police Service. Croke was injured in the riot and required hospitalisation, following which he was transported to Britain by to serve out the remainder of his sentence. His successor was the erstwhile Probation Officer, Major Charles Baring, who had served in the Coldstream Guards in both world wars, and had been Second-in-Command of 56 Military Prison in Italy from 1944 to 1945. In the 1930s he had been Housemaster and Deputy Governor of Wormwood Scrubs. He took over as Warden of Prisons in July, 1952, but resigned the same year and was replaced in 1953 by Wing Commander Erie Ellis, who also resigned in June, 1955, after a stormy administration. The post was then temporarily filled by Colonel Cecil Newing until Major Geoffrey Nash, a fourteen-year veteran of the British Indian Army arrived to take over in February, 1956.
A more recent scandal was caused in 1992 when the Prison Officers' Club hosted a Fathers' Day event for which they had imported a troupe of female strippers called the Luscious Lollipops. Two officers were convicted of indecency in Magistrates' Court. The Acting Senior Magistrate, John Judge, said the show was "outrageously indecent by any standards" and fined Frost $500 and Cann $400. His decision was subsequently reversed by the Chief Justice, Sir James Astwood, who ordered the fines to be repaid and recommended that the two men be permitted to keep their jobs. The two officers had been defended by former Prosecutor Saul Froomkin.
In 2002, the Government of Bermuda announced a new mindset concerning the treatment of offenders, redesignating the prisons as correctional facilities. HM Prison Service, Bermuda, was renamed in accordance with this policy as the Department of Corrections. As the party in Government at the time, the Progressive Labour Party has long called for both severing the territory's ties with Britain, and for removing the Monarchy, many Bermudians thought the new mindset to be a ploy to remove "Her Majesty's" from the name of the service. The PLP Government also raised hackles by inserting the word "National" into the names of many facilities and organisations, such as the former Bermuda Library, and renaming facilities for party members.
Prisons
- Westgate Correctional Facility
- Prison Farm
- St. George’s Co-Educational Facility
- The Right Living House