And like the hostel, the Belize Central Prison's goal is also to rehabilitate its inmates. Those were the words of Kolbe Foundation CEO, Virgilio Murillo, when we spoke to him about the Marijuana Bill that was tabled in the House on Friday. In an interview given by the Minister of New Growth Industries on that day, Kareem Musa said that any person currently in jail for possession of less than 10 grams could apply to be released and have their record expunged.
So today, we went up to the prison to learn that there actually isn't anyone in prison for less than 10 grams, but there are a few in there for possession and for drug trafficking.
But as Murillo explained, that number had significantly dipped after the decriminalization legislation was passed in 2017. He gave us an update on the stats at the prison.
Virgilio Murillo - CEO, Kolby Foundation
"This law was passed in November of 2017 and we a decline based on my numbers, an immediate decline in 2018. We saw a spike in 2019 but we saw it dipped tremendously in 2020."
Courtney Menzies
"While during that time after the legislation was passed, did anybody use that opportunity to apply, people already in prison, to apply to be release and have their records expunged?"
Virgilio Murillo
"Not that I'm aware of. I think that became knowledge to these inmates a couple days ago when the minister mentioned it on the media. The record shows as it relates to drug possession charges and this will be those that are here for over 10 grams. 1.32% that is my last statistics that would have been as of the end of March when the population stood at 1,059. So it's literally 14 people serving a sentence for drug possession, it means anything over 10 grams. Then drug trafficking is roughly 44 or 4.15% and that's drug trafficking, in excess of 60 grams."
Courtney Menzies
"The drug possession, has that always been generally a low number?"
Virgilio Murillo
"In the past before the passing of this law, it was kind of high, for argument sake I have stats here that in 2015 it was the highest, it was 150 persons in prison coming to prison for that kind of offense then it came down but in 2017 this is when they passed the law in November, so that was still kind of high then but it took a drastic dip in 2018. If you notice 2020 was the lowest will only 20 overall. Today I can say we don't have anybody in here for less than 10 grams of marijuana."
