Camille Clarke

Pres­i­dent of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion Ra­jku­mar Ram­roop says no one is above the law and pris­ons of­fi­cers of all ranks should be searched up­on en­ter­ing the na­tion's pris­ons. His com­ment comes in the wake of al­le­ga­tions made that a se­nior of­fi­cer, as­signed to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, had been in­volved in drug traf­fick­ing three weeks ago. Re­cent­ly, Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er John Rougi­er said he did not in­tend to sub­ject se­nior of­fi­cers to search­es at point of en­try.

Ram­roop said, up to late yes­ter­day the con­di­tions re­mained the same at the pris­ons. "We have been call­ing for the longest time to im­ple­ment se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures. "We met with the min­is­ters and an in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee and it was agreed that all the se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems would be put in place and the com­mis­sion­er is try­ing to un­der­mine the whole process," Ram­roop said. He said mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion and the com­mis­sion­er vis­it­ed pris­ons in Den­ver, Col­orado, Ba­hamas, and oth­er for­eign pris­ons for con­fer­ences and every­one was sub­ject­ed to search. "He (Com­mis­sion­er) and the war­dens were searched. How come there is this prob­lem where se­nior of­fi­cers can­not pass through here?" he asked.

"Why he (Rougi­er) does not tell air­port se­cu­ri­ty that he is not pass­ing through the scan­ner? Min­is­ters and even the Prime Min­is­ter have to pass through the scan­ners," Ram­roop said. He said there had been many al­le­ga­tions of cor­rupt of­fi­cers dur­ing the past few years. Ram­roop re­newed calls for the procla­ma­tion of the Prison Ser­vice Amend­ment Act which deals with cor­rupt of­fi­cers and prison search­es.

"No one is above the law. We agreed with the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment and we sup­port­ed them to pass leg­is­la­tion to en­sure oth­er sur­veil­lance equip­ment would be in­stalled. Yet the Com­mis­sion­er wants to re­serve rights for cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als that every­one should be sub­ject too. I and all pass through the scan­ners. I lead by ex­am­ple and am pre­pared to obey the laws," Ram­roop said. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sub­has Pan­day were not avail­able for com­ment yes­ter­day.