Another large group of people affected by the natural disaster are the inmates held in the 19 prisons across that island nation, to include the over 4,000 that were held in Haiti’s National Penitentiary in the capital city.

Constructed in 1918 by U.S. Marines, the Haitian National Penitentiary was built to hold 800, although it had at least 4,000 prisoners at the time of the earthquake. Witnesses have indicated that the walls of the prison, as well as the prison itself, have been reduced to piles of broken concrete and prisoners not killed or trapped in the rubble were running helter-skelter from the prison. One witness described seening escaping prisones being fired upon by guards as they ran from their former prison home.

Haitian prisons not only house convicted criminals, but also hold many political prisoners arrested after the 2004 coup d’etat that saw the overthrow of then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. By some reports upwards of 80% of the prisoners in Haiti’s prisons have not been convicted of a crime, and the criminal justice system in that country grinds so slow that some have been held since Aristride’s overthrow without seeing the inside of a courtroom, much less having been charged with a crime more serious than “associating with miscreants.”

In September 1989, I was one of hundreds of FBI Agents and U.S. Army personnel deployed to St. Croix after that island was hit by Hurricane Hugo, a Category 5 storm with 160+ mph winds. In a similar fashion, the major prison on that island was also seriously damaged, with hundreds of prisoners escaping as the walls fell down. At the same time some members of the St. Croix military and their local police were seen looting buildings and homes instead of saving lives and catching escaped prisoners, a task basically left to the responding FBI Agents and U.S. Army troops. We spent many days attempting to round up the escaped prisoners, some of whom participated in robberies and lootings, while others sought ways to escape from the island itself. With the terrible destruction that befell St. Croix, though minor by today’s Haitian standards, the rule of law was difficult to reestablish and civil order would not be in place in St. Croix for many weeks.
With the loss of all civil structure and the daily needs of thousands of citizens going unmet, it will likely be years before Haiti can recover from the destruction of this massive earthquake. One need only look at the crumbled ruin that was once Haiti’s capital building to know how serious this disaster really is.

Haiti’s main penitentiary has been destroyed and along with it, most of the records pertaining to the inmates held in squalor conditions therein. For the otherwise innocent political prisoners, some have gained the freedom, at least for the moment, they have sought for years. But for the hardened criminals packed into a building constructed to hold only 20% of those incarcerated at the time of the earthquake, they have been turned loose on this challenged and seriously wounded island nation to perhaps add to the pain currently being felt by their fellow countrymen. We can only hope their need to survive surpasses their desire to commit yet new crimes.