Use prison labour to maintain public spaces, says Alexander

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says the Gov­ern­ment plans to tap what he de­scribed as "the largest labour force in the na­tion" by de­ploy­ing prison in­mates sen­tenced to hard labour to help main­tain pub­lic spaces while the re­place­ment for CEPEP is rolled out.

Speak­ing dur­ing a vis­it to the Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces (NPUPS) in Tu­na­puna on Tues­day, Alexan­der said con­vict­ed pris­on­ers would be brought out to as­sist with clean­ing com­mu­ni­ties, cut­ting grass and main­tain­ing pub­lic ar­eas.

"We have the largest labour force in the na­tion's prison and we don't utilise them," Alexan­der said.

He added: "We are go­ing to rein­tro­duce where per­sons who have been charged and con­vict­ed by a court and sen­tenced to hard labour. We are go­ing to rein­tro­duce those per­sons to help... with the clean-up process."

The an­nounce­ment comes as res­i­dents across Trinidad and To­ba­go have com­plained for the past year about over­grown grass and un­main­tained pub­lic spaces fol­low­ing the clo­sure of the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), say­ing the ne­glect­ed ar­eas have be­come both an eye­sore and a se­cu­ri­ty risk.

Alexan­der ac­knowl­edged the main­te­nance back­log, say­ing CEPEP would not re­turn un­til le­gal mat­ters had been re­solved.

He al­so ar­gued that keep­ing pub­lic spaces clear is a crime-fight­ing mea­sure, echo­ing con­cerns raised by res­i­dents about over­grown veg­e­ta­tion.

"It's about en­vi­ron­men­tal de­sign, which is part of the crime is­sues. Be­cause if there's bush here and large bush here, peo­ple hid­ing and jump­ing out at you. It's about fix­ing the en­vi­ron­men­tal de­sign of the place."

Alexan­der said NPUPS teams would con­tin­ue mov­ing from com­mu­ni­ty to com­mu­ni­ty car­ry­ing out main­te­nance work.

De­fend­ing the prison labour pro­pos­al, he said it would al­so help re­ha­bil­i­tate in­mates.

"You know what is hard labour in the jail right now? A man that is smok­ing. A man on his phone, in­ter­net and all these things. If some­one is smart and on the in­side can use that process to rein­te­grate him­self in­to the pub­lic, let the pub­lic see that fel­la is hard work­ing."