"No Locks No Bars"

Dudus' Moved To Low-Security Prison

Jamaican drug kingpin Christopher 'Dudus' Coke has been moved to a low-security prison with "no bars, towers, or locks" to complete his 23-year prison sentence in the United States (US).

The US Bureau of Prisons confirmed yesterday that Coke had been transferred to the Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution (FCI), located in the state of New Jersey."I have him here," a spokesperson at Fort Dix confirmed to The Gleaner.

The spokesperson, however, indicated that it was against government policy to disclose when Coke was transferred and why.

The Fort Dix FCI is located in Burlington County, New Jersey, and currently houses just over 4,000 male inmates. According to its admission and orientation handbook for inmates, which has been published on the Internet, the facility has "no bars, towers, or locks on the rooms located within the community units".

"Inmates must demonstrate a high degree of responsibility and the expectations are that each inmate will comply," the document noted.

THIRD INSTITUTION

This is the third institution across the American penal system to house the second-generation Tivoli Gardens strongman since 2011, when he pleaded guilty to drugs and firearm charges in a New York federal court.

Coke was first housed at the high-security Metropolitan Detention Centre, located in Brooklyn, New York, in the days after he was extradited from Jamaica, and remained there for a while after his conviction.

More than 70 persons, including a member of the Jamaica Defence Force, were killed in West Kingston in May 2010 as heavily armed thugs loyal to Coke battled the security forces for over two days to prevent his arrest and extradition. He was extradited to the US a month later.

In 2013, Coke was transferred from New York to the Edgefield FCI, located near the border of South Carolina and Georgia.

The Fort Dix FCI said that the average age of inmates at the facility is 41, while the average sentence is 11 years.

"Most inmates are from this area, and there is a large number of deportable aliens confined here," the institution revealed.

Coke is scheduled to be released on July 4, 2030, according to the US Bureau of Prisons.

Reports of the latest transfer come more than a week after Coke's younger brother, Leighton 'Livity' Coke, was shot and injured at Hellshire Beach in St Catherine.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com