Prison officers sound alarm over conditions across prisons

The Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has is­sued a pub­lic ap­peal high­light­ing what it de­scribes as long­stand­ing is­sues af­fect­ing pris­ons across Trinidad and To­ba­go, call­ing for im­prove­ments to staffing, in­fra­struc­ture, equip­ment and work­ing con­di­tions.

The state­ment comes as the as­so­ci­a­tion re­mains in the spot­light fol­low­ing re­ports of a di­vi­sion with­in its ex­ec­u­tive over how the mat­ter in­volv­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Car­los Car­raspe was han­dled pub­licly by Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Lester Lo­gie. Car­raspe was sent on leave amid al­le­ga­tions of pref­er­en­tial treat­ment af­ford­ed to busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed, who is be­ing de­tained at the Gold­en Grove Prison un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO). The as­so­ci­a­tion did not ad­dress the is­sue in its lat­est so­cial me­dia post.

In the post, the as­so­ci­a­tion out­lined sev­er­al con­cerns af­fect­ing the Prison Ser­vice na­tion­al­ly. These in­clude the al­lo­ca­tion and re­place­ment of uni­forms, crit­i­cal staffing short­ages, pro­mo­tions and pro­longed act­ing ap­point­ments, out­stand­ing over­time pay­ments, poor work­ing con­di­tions, un­re­solved Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Ad­min­is­tra­tion (OS­HA) find­ings, and the ex­pan­sion of the ap­proved es­tab­lish­ment to re­flect the tran­si­tion from a Prison Ser­vice to a mod­ern Cor­rec­tions Ser­vice. The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so called for an im­proved path­way to FUL po­si­tions.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so list­ed is­sues spe­cif­ic to in­di­vid­ual cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties.

At the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, it called for the in­stal­la­tion and main­te­nance of a re­li­able gen­er­a­tor, re­pairs to the main gate and elec­tron­ic con­trol sys­tems, im­proved ven­ti­la­tion, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the ac­cess road, en­hanced in­ter­nal and perime­ter light­ing, and the in­stal­la­tion of a tele­phone sys­tem for of­fi­cers’ kiosks.

For Gold­en Grove Prison, the as­so­ci­a­tion iden­ti­fied the need for im­prove­ments to the of­fi­cers’ car park, dor­mi­to­ry fa­cil­i­ties, a pedes­tri­an cross­walk, ven­ti­la­tion and the ra­tion room.

It al­so called for a re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply, im­proved dor­mi­to­ry ac­com­mo­da­tion and in­creased staffing at the Women’s Prison.

Among the is­sues raised for the Philip Street Ad­min­is­tra­tive Build­ing were ad­e­quate staff park­ing, im­proved ven­ti­la­tion and reg­u­lar air con­di­tion­ing main­te­nance.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said the Port of Spain Prison re­quires ren­o­va­tion of the of­fi­cers’ dor­mi­to­ry, im­proved ven­ti­la­tion, up­grad­ed light­ing sys­tems, in­creased staffing and se­cure park­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

For the Car­rera Con­vict Prison, it called for ser­vice­able pa­trol boats and ma­rine trans­port, im­proved dor­mi­to­ry ac­com­mo­da­tion, a re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply and ad­e­quate park­ing.

At the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre, the as­so­ci­a­tion iden­ti­fied the need to re­move a pi­geon in­fes­ta­tion, im­prove san­i­ta­tion, re­pair the perime­ter fence and roof, and up­grade the main gate.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so called for mod­ern com­mu­ni­ca­tion equip­ment, ex­pand­ed CCTV cov­er­age and sur­veil­lance sys­tems, a rou­tine main­te­nance pro­gramme for all prison fa­cil­i­ties, in­creased in­vest­ment in of­fi­cer train­ing and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment, im­proved of­fi­cer well­ness and men­tal health sup­port ser­vices, re­place­ment of ob­so­lete se­cu­ri­ty equip­ment, emer­gency med­ical re­sponse ca­pa­bil­i­ty, in­clud­ing ded­i­cat­ed am­bu­lances where re­quired, and reg­u­lar con­sul­ta­tion with the Min­istry on prison re­form ini­tia­tives.