Back to hard labour: Convicted inmates to clean up public spaces

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says the Gov­ern­ment will rein­tro­duce a pro­gramme re­quir­ing con­vict­ed pris­on­ers sen­tenced to hard labour to par­tic­i­pate in pub­lic clean-up ex­er­cis­es as part of its crime pre­ven­tion strat­e­gy.

An­nounc­ing the ini­tia­tive dur­ing a com­mu­ni­ty clean-up ex­er­cise by work­ers of the Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces (NPUPS) in Tu­na­puna yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said in­mates serv­ing hard labour sen­tences would once again be de­ployed to as­sist in main­tain­ing pub­lic spaces, ar­gu­ing that the cur­rent sys­tem does not re­flect the true mean­ing of hard labour.

He said, “You know what is hard labour in the jail right now? A man smok­ing, on his phone and on the in­ter­net and all these things, that’s not hard labour.”

Asked when the pro­gramme will be­gin, he replied, “We are about move­ments. Let me use these words, move­men­ta­tions, but don’t google it.”

He ar­gued that the pro­gramme could al­so sup­port re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion by al­low­ing in­mates to demon­strate pos­i­tive be­hav­iour be­fore re­turn­ing to so­ci­ety.

“We are al­low­ing per­sons to do their job, clean the com­mu­ni­ty, beau­ti­fy the place again so every­body could see. 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, so it’s about fix­ing the en­vi­ron­men­tal de­sign of the place.”

The min­is­ter added that the na­tion’s pris­ons rep­re­sent­ed “one of the largest labour forces” that was not be­ing prop­er­ly utilised.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Elvin Scant­le­bury on the mat­ter, he said the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice stood ready to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s plans, but ex­plained that for­mal dis­cus­sions on the ini­tia­tive will have to take place.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone yes­ter­day, Scant­le­bury said, “The ser­vice stands ready to as­sist wher­ev­er we can. We have a long his­to­ry of help­ing in dif­fer­ent ar­eas in pub­lic clean-up ex­er­cis­es, so we’re no stranger to this ef­fort. We’re look­ing for­ward to work­ing with the min­is­ter and ac­com­plish­ing the ob­jec­tives.”

Scant­le­bury said in­mates se­lect­ed for any pub­lic work pro­gramme would un­der­go care­ful as­sess­ments be­fore be­ing ap­proved.

How­ev­er, the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TTPrS) said any ex­pan­sion of in­mate work pro­grammes be­yond the se­cure con­fines of cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties must be ap­proached with cau­tion.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, TTPrS said, “The As­so­ci­a­tion recog­nis­es that mean­ing­ful work is an im­por­tant el­e­ment of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion. Prop­er­ly struc­tured work pro­grammes can help in­mates de­vel­op prac­ti­cal skills, fos­ter dis­ci­pline, and bet­ter pre­pare them for suc­cess­ful rein­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety. How­ev­er, any ex­pan­sion of in­mate work pro­grammes be­yond the se­cure con­fines of cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties must be ap­proached with cau­tion and guid­ed by es­tab­lished cor­rec­tion­al prin­ci­ples. On­ly care­ful­ly se­lect­ed con­vict­ed in­mates who have been med­ical­ly cer­ti­fied fit, have served an ap­pro­pri­ate por­tion of their sen­tence, and have suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed com­pre­hen­sive med­ical, se­cu­ri­ty, and be­hav­iour­al risk as­sess­ments should be con­sid­ered for such du­ties. Pub­lic safe­ty must re­main the fore­most pri­or­i­ty.”

It added that such an ini­tia­tive re­quires spe­cial­ly skilled prison of­fi­cers, trans­porta­tion and prop­er equip­ment for ex­e­cu­tion.

Mean­while, chair­man of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee, Za­kiya Uzoma Wada­da told Guardian Me­dia she’d like to see in­mates oc­cu­pied in a pos­i­tive way.

Guardian Me­dia al­so at­tempt­ed to reach out to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro on the pro­gramme, but re­ceived no feed­back up to press time.