- NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - Hier 09:03

Prison union: Officers feel disrespected by other law enforcement

PRISON Officers Association (POA) head Gerard Gordon has alleged a series of ways by which the government and the police service have shown disrespect to his officers, speaking to Newsday on July 25. His complaints followed the police service's removal of several prisoners from the Maximum Security Prison in Arouca for relocation to defence force facilities at Chaguaramas. This occurred after President Christine Kangaloo had declared a state of emergency (SoE) on July 18 amid claims by Commissioner of Police Allister Guevarro of a pact of criminal gangs intent on harming certain state officials in the criminal justice system. On top of that, Minister of Defence Wayne Sturge has queried the positioning of a 65-inch television inside a prison cell. Guevarro had alluded to individuals "hell-bent on facilitating" prisoners' communication with the outside world, alluding to the smuggling of cell-phones into prison. Gordon, however, alluded to a rift between the prison service on one hand and the government and police service on the other. Regarding the 65-inch television set, he noted three quarters of prisoners had not yet been convicted of any crime but were just on remand and so should not be denied access to watching the news and movies. He said TVs existed in all jails in TT. Saying the prison system was very much under-resourced, he said, "The entire prison system is crumbling. "Officers are taking money from their own pockets to fix things and get things up and running." He complained that new staff for TT's prisons had not been hired for five years, even as 100 officers retire each year and 24 had died last year to illnesses such as cancer, some were murdered and some were resigning. "The issue for us was not the television, but that the country is not aware of all the challenges we face." Gordon said a female officer recently had a nervous breakdown, amid many challenges in managing some female juveniles. "We don't have enough space." He said prisoners were not boxes but living people with the need to eat and sleep and have opportunities to receive learning. Gordon viewed Sturge's recent comments as a distraction. Gordon also replied to Minister of Homeland Security Roger Alexander's apparent questioning of the integrity of prison officers, by saying, "Who is more corrupt than the police service? It is a ridiculous narrative and a distraction." Gordon questioned Guevarro's claim that the SoE was called because of real threats to TT which had emanated from prison. "He who accuses must prove. Where is the evidence of these threats? Why have these people not been charged?" Regarding the transfer of certain inmates to confinement in Chaguaramas, he said the law says only the prison service can hold remandees, a point he said was confirmed by a court's instrument for incarceration of a prisoner being addressed only to the prisons commissioner. "The Commissioner of Police threw an entire (prison) service under the bus." Reports are now of prison officers working at the Chaguaramas facility, under the guard of armed soldiers. Gordon lamented that now prison officers were being ridiculed, even as no one was addressing the long-standing challenges faced by the prison service. Newsday asked about the mood for dialogue among the prison service, police and government. Gordon lamented, "While the criminal element is consolidating their efforts, we (POA) have not even met the new minister of homeland security. "It leads me to believe we are ignored and are not important enough to be given the time to discuss very important issues. These people are not knowing what they are doing. "You have not spoken to us because you feel you know it. But the POA has been very consistent over the years and has been saying the same thing for the last 20 years." Newsday asked if prison officers felt the system could protect them or whether they wanted firearms. Gordon said, "We lost 32 officers in two decades. Anywhere in the Commonwealth or in Western Hemisphere you would be hard-pressed to find anything resembling TT. "The state refuses to protect us. Numerous instances they had information and intelligence and they refused to act on it and officers were murdered. "We have no confidence in any government. We are left to our own devices." He alleged that some individuals operated with ego, pomp and position, but to truly address crime all arms of the criminal justice system must meet up. Newsday asked if local prisons needed a tougher regime – such as signal-blocking to stop delivery drones over prison – or more liberal measures, such as allowing more televisions. He replied that smuggling contraband items into prison via drones, staff or visitors was not a novel or new thing. "We have no working baggage scanner, no body scanner and no cavity scanner. It is not about being tougher but understanding the environment in which we are operating. "Nothing is being done about the new Prison Rules." The post Prison union: Officers feel disrespected by other law enforcement appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.