PAULA GORDON, Staff Reporter

We have heard stories about prisoners being 'lost in the system' but never in a million years would you think that some of the cases have been deliberate.

Word reaching THE WEEKEND STAR is that the police are supposedly on a mission to rid the country of criminals, and as such, it is being alleged that they have been utilising the prison system to do so.

Claims are being put forward that when some persons are taken into custody, the police enter incorrect or fictitious names into the logbooks so that they cannot be found.

A former inmate in a recent interview with THE WEEKEND STAR alleged that the police have been carrying out the tactics for years.

"If a man nuh have nuh money fi get nuh lawyer or if yuh nuh have no family fi help yuh, dem mek yuh si down ina dat till dem ready fi release yuh," he said. "Sometime certain authorities come down there come check the prison and when dem realise nuff prisoner nuh listed, and when dem mek dem carry dem go court dem tell di judge say a wrong name the prisoner gi dem."

Despite the claims being made by the former inmate, a police source informed our news team that he is not familiar with the tactic.

"I am not saying it can't be done but what you should know is that no person can be in custody for an extended period of time without being charged, so the person's name is irrelevant," he said.

At the same time Commissioner of Corrections, Lieutenant Colonel Sean Prendergast, said that he too was not aware of such a scheme.

He noted that if there is such an allegation the information should be passed on to the police commissioner so that investigations can be carried out.

He said: "When inmates come to us we do fingerprints to see if they have ever been in any of our institutions, and if there is a discrepancy we pass it back to the Police Records Office."

Meanwhile, back in 2003, it was reported that a 78-year-old man, Alfred Nettleford, reached a settlement with the Government after he brought a lawsuit against them for being mistakenly imprisoned at the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre in Kingston for 28 years.

Nancy Anderson, a legal officer with the independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights, told reporters that in 1972, police accused Nettleford of throwing a rock through a bank window in Clarendon. A judge sent him to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

Nettleford, however, became "lost in the system" and never returned to face charges, although a doctor had pronounced him fit to plea.

At the time, his family said they were unable to locate him because he was imprisoned under the name of Ivan Borrows.