Gail Alexan­der

More po­lice se­cu­ri­ty would be vis­i­ble in busi­ness sec­tors – es­pe­cial­ly shop­ping malls–for Christ­mas.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon con­firmed this yes­ter­day in Par­lia­ment, re­ply­ing to Op­po­si­tion ques­tions. Dil­lon said there has been an in­crease in po­lice pres­ence and joint army-po­lice pres­ence through­out T&T, and busi­ness sec­tors in­clud­ing shop­ping malls. He said the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams re­cent­ly held talks with some busi­ness own­ers and there was se­cu­ri­ty vis­i­bil­i­ty and de­ter­rents in such cen­tres to "give them a sense of com­fort."

He said pri­or­i­ty for any ar­eas would de­pend on in­for­ma­tion and in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing by the CoP who would de­ter­mine where and when troops would be con­cen­trat­ed.

"But the pres­ence will be through­out busi­ness sec­tors es­pe­cial­ly shop­ping malls," he said.

Dil­lon al­so re­spond­ed to Op­po­si­tion ques­tions on mea­sures tak­en to mit­i­gate against a re­cur­rence of the June in­ci­dent where keys from the Port-of-Spain prison went miss­ing. Dil­lon said T&T Prison Ser­vice au­thor­i­ties in­di­cat­ed the in­ci­dent caused re-eval­u­a­tion of the es­tab­lished se­cu­ri­ty frame­work in the city prison.

Mea­sures to pre­vent a re­cur­rence, he said, in­clud­ed all keys and locks at the prison be­ing re­placed. Closed cir­cuit tele­vi­sion cam­eras have been in­stalled, en­abling mon­i­tor­ing of of­fi­cers as well as in­mates.

Oth­er vi­su­al aids have been set up at strate­gic points around the prison to en­sure that of­fi­cers are "con­tin­u­ous­ly re­mind­ed of the du­ty and care that must be im­ple­ment­ed re­gard­ing use of keys."

Dil­lon said spot checks have been im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure of­fi­cers record­ed as be­ing is­sued keys, "are tru­ly in pos­ses­sion of them."

Main gate of­fi­cers have al­so been told not to al­low of­fi­cers to leave with keys and to note de­par­tures in di­aries. More thor­ough dai­ly checks are al­so be­ing done to en­sure of­fi­cers re­turn keys.

A prison ser­vice com­mit­tee is be­ing es­tab­lished to draft poli­cies re­gard­ing all ad­min­is­tra­tive/op­er­a­tional ar­eas of the prison.