Robbers out, accused child rapist in - Prison capacity continue to force Prosecutor's hand

GREAT BAY--The capacity crisis at Point Blanche Prison continues to undermine the work of the Prosecutor’s Office, forcing it to make decisions that run counter to its mandate of ensuring justice for victims of violent crime.

As a direct consequence, Minister of Justice Nathalie Tackling was informed last week by the Chief Prosecutor that the Prosecutor’s Office had to release suspects of a recent brutal armed robbery, in which the victim was shot, to make space for suspects accused of raping a very young girl and a young woman under threat of a firearm. Reports indicated that the robbers were foreign nationals, allegedly from Trinidad and Tobago, who were subsequently deported.  

This is not an isolated case. Over the past eight to nine months, 13 inmates have been released after serving at least two-thirds of their sentence, a process considered regular release under the law. But in addition, nine others had to be granted early conditional release purely because there was no space left in the prison.

At present (note: amounts can change) With 80 available cells, of which 70 are occupied by convicted prisoners, just 10 remain for pretrial detainees. The law requires that once a judge extends pretrial detention, a suspect can no longer remain in a police cell and must be transferred to Point Blanche. Yet Point Blanche has been at full capacity for months. This has left prosecutors with an almost weekly burden of deciding which suspects to keep behind bars and which to release, not because the law allows them to go free, but because the system cannot physically accommodate them.

The strain on St. Maarten’s prison system is not new. Since 2000, international and local watchdogs have repeatedly documented severe shortcomings at Point Blanche, from chronic overcrowding and weak staffing levels to deteriorating infrastructure and inadequate rehabilitation programs. Reports by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the Law Enforcement Council, the Progress Committee, and the local courts have consistently pointed to unsafe and unsustainable conditions.

In 2017, the Court of First Instance formally ruled that detention standards were not being met. The Law Enforcement Council’s reviews in 2016–2019, 2022, and again in 2024 all reiterated the same conclusion: the facility is unfit to meet the demands placed on it. Health care, safety, and basic detainee rights have been found lacking, while violence and instability remain recurring problems.

Over the years, natural disasters and internal unrest have further reduced the already limited capacity. After Hurricane Irma in 2017, part of the prison became unusable and 23 detainees had to be transferred to the Netherlands. More recently, the May 14, 2025 fire and riot displaced 51 inmates. Six were moved temporarily to Bonaire and the Netherlands, while the remainder were housed in improvised local facilities. Some of those inmates have since returned to Point Blanche, but the prison has once again reached its maximum capacity of 80.

The shortage has also created a chronic reliance on police station holding cells, which are designed for short-term custody only. Both the CPT and the Law Enforcement Council have documented cases of detainees being kept there for weeks or months, and in extreme cases for as long as two years. These facilities lack adequate space, hygiene, and safeguards, and place police officers, who are not trained as prison staff, in the position of managing long-term detainees.

The cumulative effect is a justice system under extraordinary strain. For the Prosecutor’s Office, the reality is violent crime suspects who should be awaiting trial in custody are walking free, not because the evidence is weak or the law requires it, but because there is simply nowhere to put them.

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