The Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion was last night brac­ing for a spate of ri­ots at Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, af­ter a rou­tine search at the Re­mand Yard re­sult­ed in the seizure of 36 cell­phones and an undis­closed quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na.

The con­tra­band was found in the knap­sack of a pris­on­er who was re­turn­ing to the fa­cil­i­ty af­ter at­tend­ing a court hear­ing at the Princes Town Mag­is­trates Court on Mon­day. In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion's gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Ger­ard Gor­don, said the seized items would have been ex­treme­ly valu­able to its in­tend­ed re­ceiv­er. "What is the back­lash ... Who is go­ing to pay for this?" Gor­don ques­tioned.

He added that if the ex­pect­ed reper­cus­sions come, his col­leagues would be like sit­ting ducks both in­side and out­side the prison walls. He re­called the shoot­ing death of prison of­fi­cer Andy Rogers in No­vem­ber last year, which trig­gered a se­ries of protests by the prison of­fi­cers.

This ac­tion had forced the Gov­ern­ment to com­mis­sion a nine-mem­ber com­mit­tee, head­ed by Prof Ramesh De­osaran. The com­mit­tee was man­dat­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to look in­to the con­di­tions at the pris­ons and sub­mit a re­port.

Gor­don said some of the blame for yes­ter­day's sit­u­a­tion must rest on the po­lice at the Princes Town Mag­is­trates Court. The pris­on­er was re­turn­ing to Re­mand Yard af­ter a court mat­ter there and should have been prop­er­ly searched be­fore en­ter­ing trans­port ve­hi­cle to Arou­ca.He said for this to have oc­curred there must have been some sort of col­lu­sion.

"They (po­lice) have to take some licks. How is it pos­si­ble that this man had all this con­tra­band? It could have been a gun, what else could they have brought?" Gor­don said, adding the po­lice must ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Re­port ex­pect­ed to­day

Con­tact­ed for a com­ment on the mat­ter last evening, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams said he was un­aware of what Gor­don was re­fer­ring to.He said, how­ev­er, that if there were any is­sues, Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Con­rad Bar­row would ad­dress him on it and he (Williams) would take what­ev­er ac­tion needs to be tak­en.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 4 pm on Mon­day the in­mates were re­turn­ing to the fa­cil­i­ty from court when the fire alarm was sound­ed. The in­mate in ques­tion was try­ing to sneak in­to the prison with the drugs and cell phones, but was stopped by two prison of­fi­cers and a scuf­fle en­sued.The two of­fi­cers were in­jured dur­ing the scuf­fle, but when he was sub­dued and his knap­sack was searched the il­le­gal items were found.

Al­so con­tact­ed last night, Bar­row said he was un­aware of the de­tails in­ci­dent, but said he had re­quest­ed a full re­port on the mat­ter which he is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive to­day.Gor­don said the rec­om­men­da­tions made by the De­osaran com­mit­tee of in­stalling cell phone jam­mers, full body scan­ners and oth­er equip­ment need­ed to be fast tracked. He gave ku­dos to the Gov­ern­ment for tak­ing the ini­tia­tive to set up the com­mit­tee.

How­ev­er, he called for the spe­cial ten­der's com­mu­ni­ty of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, who are re­spon­si­ble for ten­der­ing for equip­ment, to fast track the mat­ter.

what de­osaran's team sug­gest­ed

�2 A com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

�2 The de­lay in ad­ju­di­cat­ing mat­ters in the courts must be ad­dressed to give pris­on­ers on re­mand pref­er­en­tial treat­ment over ac­cused who are out on bail.

�2 A re­view of the bail regime both from an ad­min­is­tra­tive and ju­di­cial lev­el.

�2 Se­mi-pri­vati­sa­tion of the pris­ons, specif­i­cal­ly as it re­lates to spe­cial di­ets, since some of the con­tra­band items en­ter through food brought for pris­on­ers.

�2 Pro­vide cloth­ing for those on re­mand.

�2 Pris­ons of­fi­cers should be al­lowed firearms out­side the prison and safe hous­ing.

Ques­tioned about whether there would be quick ac­tion on the De­osaran re­port then, since there were count­less oth­ers sub­mit­ted in the past, the PM said this time it would be go­ing to the Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es Com­mit­tee, which had not hap­pened be­fore. She said her Gov­ern­ment was tak­ing the is­sue se­ri­ous­ly, but the rec­om­men­da­tions could not be im­ple­ment­ed overnight and she would look at some short term changes in the in­ter­im.