"All of us have to stop play­ing, the time for play­ing is fin­ished!"So said Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Ster­ling Stew­art who has warned pris­on­ers un­der his care that de­spite the threats be­ing ad­vanced to­wards his of­fi­cers, they will con­tin­ue to per­form their du­ty fair­ly and fear­less­ly, even at the risk of los­ing their lives.

Speak­ing to re­porters as he emerged from a three-and-a-half- hour meet­ing at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Stew­art urged every­one, in­clud­ing the me­dia, to unite "in the fight against the crime and wicked­ness that is go­ing on through the land."

Un­will­ing to re­veal what was dis­cussed dur­ing the meet­ing which al­so in­clud­ed the heads of the Po­lice and Fire Ser­vices, as well as the heads of the re­spec­tive as­so­ci­a­tions, Stew­art said Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon had promised to work on "short-term goals."

Pressed to say what steps were be­ing tak­en to as­sure pris­ons of­fi­cers, who re­side in high risk ar­eas that the is­sue of hous­ing would be re­vis­it­ed im­me­di­ate­ly, Stew­art replied:

"We have cer­tain strate­gic plans in place. The min­is­ter is work­ing on im­me­di­ate short-term goals and we want to give him that op­por­tu­ni­ty.

"We had dis­cus­sions and the min­is­ter said he would be work­ing on it with alacrity and as­sid­u­ous­ly and I want to give him an op­por­tu­ni­ty to do that."

There has been a re­newed call by the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion for pris­ons of­fi­cers who re­side in high risk ar­eas to be re­lo­cat­ed.Just last month, Fitzal­bert Vic­tor was gunned down while wash­ing his car out­side his house at Priz­gar Lands, Laven­tille.He was the third pris­ons of­fi­cer to be killed in un­der six months.

Asked if that is­sue was not a top pri­or­i­ty for him as the head of the Pris­ons Ser­vice, Stew­art again said: "I have come out of dis­cus­sions with the min­is­ter. The min­is­ter has giv­en us cer­tain as­sur­ances and I have that con­fi­dence in the min­is­ter that we will see cer­tain ac­tion com­ing out this meet­ing. I want to give him that op­por­tu­ni­ty."

As he was asked what next for of­fi­cers, Stew­art said: "Ac­tion, we hope. We live in that hope and faith that de­ci­sive ac­tion will be tak­en. Time will tell how im­me­di­ate it is."

To his of­fi­cers, Stew­art im­plored them to con­tin­ue to op­er­ate in a pro­fes­sion­al man­ner.

"We are com­mit­ted as a ser­vice to the pro­tec­tion of so­ci­ety and re­duc­tion in crime. We will con­tin­ue with do­ing what we have to do, fair and fear­less­ly in a pro­fes­sion­al man­ner in car­ry­ing out our ser­vice as ser­vants of the State and as ser­vants of the peo­ple of T&T," he added.

Asked if he was aware a cell­phone had been seized re­cent­ly from a high risk in­mate and that the num­ber of a se­nior of­fi­cer had been found stored in the call log, Stew­art said he was un­aware but that checks would be made.

As­so­ci­a­tion re­sponds

Even as Stew­art called on of­fi­cers to be pa­tient, pres­i­dent of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion, Cer­ron Richards, ex­pressed his dis­sat­is­fac­tion over the out­come of the meet­ing."The Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion is not hap­py with the out­come. I am not pleased at all," he said, adding:

"I am un­able to tell my of­fi­cers who re­side in high risk ar­eas as to when they will be treat­ed with. I thought this meet­ing would have treat­ed with that and by and large, I must say that I am dis­ap­point­ed."

Ad­mit­ting that se­cu­ri­ty is­sues were dis­cussed, Richards reaf­firmed: "The threat lev­el to pris­ons of­fi­cers re­mains very high. The re­al­i­ty is that pris­ons of­fi­cers are be­ing hunt­ed down and killed and we don't think the re­sponse is in keep­ing with the type of re­al­i­ties we are fac­ing."

He added: "We be­lieve that this has to be treat­ed ex­pe­di­tious­ly, as a mat­ter of emer­gency and that is what we are not get­ting. The min­is­ter talked about look­ing for in­for­ma­tion and I am dis­ap­point­ed."