Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Gov­ern­ment’s re­cruit­ment dri­ve to re­build the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice will con­tin­ue next month, with a sec­ond in­take of re­cruits set to be­gin ori­en­ta­tion on Au­gust 24 and for­mal train­ing on Sep­tem­ber 1.

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said boost­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty be­gins with strength­en­ing the coun­try’s in­sti­tu­tions, reaf­firm­ing her Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to build­ing a stronger and more pro­fes­sion­al Prison Ser­vice.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Maraj vis­it­ed the T&T Prison Ser­vice Train­ing Acad­e­my at the Gold­en Grove Prison Com­plex in Arou­ca yes­ter­day, where they met with the first batch of re­cruits as train­ing got un­der­way. She said the first in­take had been planned for 250 re­cruits, with 226 trainees re­port­ing on the first day. Ad­di­tion­al re­cruits have al­ready been con­tact­ed to join the pro­gramme, and Gov­ern­ment ex­pects the full com­ple­ment to be reached short­ly, the PM added.

Ac­cord­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the re­cruits have cho­sen “a ca­reer of ser­vice, dis­ci­pline and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” adding that their train­ing will strength­en the prison ser­vice’s op­er­a­tional ca­pac­i­ty, im­prove in­sti­tu­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and sup­port the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of of­fend­ers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the con­tin­ued re­cruit­ment of prison of­fi­cers re­flects the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to in­vest­ing in the peo­ple and in­sti­tu­tions re­spon­si­ble for keep­ing the coun­try safe, de­scrib­ing it as part of its promise to de­liv­er “a safer, stronger and more se­cure Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The up­date came a day af­ter Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Alexan­der con­firmed that 246 prison of­fi­cer re­cruits had start­ed train­ing as part of the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­fort to ad­dress long­stand­ing staffing short­ages with­in the ser­vice.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Alexan­der said the in­take com­prised 191 male and 55 fe­male re­cruits and rep­re­sent­ed the first of two batch­es in a wider ex­er­cise ex­pect­ed to bring 500 new prison of­fi­cers in­to the ser­vice. The re­cruits will un­der­go a five-month train­ing pro­gramme, with all train­ing ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by March 2027.

Alexan­der de­scribed the re­cruit­ment dri­ve as a sig­nif­i­cant step to­ward strength­en­ing the coun­try’s cor­rec­tion­al sys­tem, re­duc­ing the heavy over­time bur­den on ex­ist­ing of­fi­cers and im­prov­ing op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy.

“This is long over­due, and what was very in­ter­est­ing was the in­ter­est these young men and women have to be­come prison of­fi­cers,” Alexan­der said.

The ini­tia­tive forms part of a broad­er re­cruit­ment cam­paign an­nounced by Alexan­der ear­li­er this week, un­der which 800 prison of­fi­cers are ex­pect­ed to be re­cruit­ed be­tween this year and 2027 to ad­dress per­sis­tent man­pow­er short­ages and the con­tin­ued loss of ex­pe­ri­enced of­fi­cers.

The re­cruit­ment push fol­lows con­cerns raised by Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don, who warned that at­tri­tion con­tin­ues to out­pace re­cruit­ment and un­re­solved work­place is­sues are af­fect­ing of­fi­cer re­ten­tion.

Alexan­der al­so said Gov­ern­ment is plac­ing re­newed em­pha­sis on re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and rein­te­gra­tion, with the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, the Min­istry of Jus­tice and the PAC­SO Unit work­ing to­geth­er to de­vel­op pro­grammes that bet­ter pre­pare in­mates for suc­cess­ful rein­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety af­ter serv­ing their sen­tences.