TWO days after calling for better resources for prison officers, president of the Prison Officers Association (POA) Gerard Gordon specified the resources needed, including body cameras for officers.
In a statement on January 7, Gordon said the nation's prison and the officers were, "under-resourced, over-burdened and littered with infrastructural deficiencies."
Speaking to Newsday on January 9 by phone call, he said the major resource officers have been asking for is a new prison.
"We have been clamouring for the building of a new facility. That never happened!
"We are utilising facilities that have obviously outlived its usefulness, undermining our ability to maintain and improve public safety."
>
With a state of emergency (SoE) being implemented on December 30, Gordon said at present, no prison in the country could ensure efficient and effective operations.
"The facilities identified by the Detention of Persons Directions 2025 are all in various states of disrepair.
"Our members more times than not have to use their minuscule salaries to purchase items and repair equipment to have operations continue."
He said they had also been begging for tools and equipment.
"The body cameras that the police don't want to use, give us. We want to use them!"
Gordon claimed some security features in certain buildings were also not working.
"We have some facilities where there is no functioning alarm."
He outlined stab and bullet proof vests and uniforms as some of the other equipment that was urgently needed by prison officers.
Gordon also claims that the Prison Service has the oldest fleet of vehicles in the Ministry of National Security.
>
"We see every year, hundreds of vehicles being purchased for the police and we cannot even get an ambulance.
"We have facilities where there is upward of 1,500 people at a time, including inmates, prison officers, civilians and visitors. There is no ambulance and few vehicles to do transport."
Highlighting the 2025 budget allocations, he said some things were left out for the Prison Service.
"A thing like sanitation, there was nothing for sanitation of the nation's prisons."
He said the "long and exhausting" list of resources needed was known by the ministry and he hoped prison officers would get the needed support soon.
Gordon added that while he knew the prisons had their own challenges, a wider issue was at play.
"It is also a criminal justice problem. Our challenges certainly need to be addressed but those challenges bleed into the entire system which includes the police and the judiciary."
