Roberts under fire from prison officers over ‘tunkey’ remark

The Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has called for re­spect and uni­ty fol­low­ing a com­ment made by Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, Anil Roberts, out­side Par­lia­ment to­day.

Roberts made the re­mark when ap­proached by Guardian Me­dia out­side the Red House for an up­date on a promised Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) state­ment on halt­ed $3.4 bil­lion in con­tracts. He told re­porters, “Al­lyuh again, hear what to do when I walk in there. Scream through the bars like you're scream­ing at a tunkey (a term used to de­scribe prison of­fi­cers) and make a sto­ry out of it.”

In a state­ment post­ed on Face­book, the as­so­ci­a­tion said it has been in­un­dat­ed with calls from of­fi­cers who ex­pressed con­cern about the min­is­ter’s com­ment.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said prison of­fi­cers con­tin­ue to serve in “some of the most de­mand­ing and un­for­giv­ing en­vi­ron­ments,” of­ten un­der im­mense pres­sure and with lim­it­ed re­sources.

It said many of­fi­cers feel the com­ment has had the ef­fect of di­min­ish­ing the sac­ri­fices they make dai­ly and triv­i­al­is­ing their role in main­tain­ing pub­lic safe­ty and sup­port­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said it holds no grudge or mal­ice to­wards Roberts and stressed that its po­si­tion is root­ed in un­der­stand­ing and re­spect, not di­vi­sion.

It added that prison of­fi­cers are cit­i­zens who serve their coun­try while bal­anc­ing their roles as fam­i­ly mem­bers, in­clud­ing fa­thers, moth­ers, sons and daugh­ters.

The as­so­ci­a­tion called on lead­ers and stake­hold­ers to choose their words care­ful­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly at a time when uni­ty is need­ed, urg­ing them to fos­ter re­spect and strength­en col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“Let us move for­ward in a spir­it of mu­tu­al re­spect and shared pur­pose for the ben­e­fit of all.”