Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter 

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is promis­ing a ma­jor over­haul and re­form of the prison sys­tem, in­clud­ing send­ing in the De­fence Force to mon­i­tor ac­tiv­i­ty in­side and out­side the coun­try’s pris­ons.

Alexan­der re­vealed his plans yes­ter­day, as he said the changes were deemed nec­es­sary af­ter scruti­ny of the in­sti­tu­tions, which have been the sub­ject of se­vere scruti­ny.

Not­ing a dri­ve to im­prove in­fra­struc­ture, se­cu­ri­ty and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion sys­tems, Alexan­der said, “First of all, you will see a prison from the road­way; you will prob­a­bly be able to see it from the air­port. Be­cause I have in­struct­ed the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons and his team, I want a clean sur­round­ings. That area must be cleaned and main­tained, the trees cut et cetera. There will al­so be an in­creased pres­ence of both po­lice and army per­son­nel op­er­a­tion-wise in and around the pris­ons.”

Pressed fur­ther on the plans for strength­en­ing sup­port for prison of­fi­cers out­side the prison walls, Alexan­der said dis­cus­sions were on­go­ing to de­ter­mine how the plan would be im­ple­ment­ed.

“We are await­ing on a struc­ture,” he said.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­aligned min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for over 10 front­line min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Alexan­der, over the week­end.

Yes­ter­day, Alexan­der con­firmed the change meant he is now the sole per­son in charge of all mat­ters re­lat­ing to the na­tion’s pris­ons but not­ed, “The pris­ons have al­ways been un­der my purview; it has just been an ad­just­ment to the roles.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that pri­or to the port­fo­lio ad­just­ments, both Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj and Alexan­der shared over­sight on spe­cif­ic op­er­a­tions of the prison sys­tem.

Alexan­der, who has been vo­cal about con­tra­band in the pris­ons, said Gov­ern­ment was al­so com­mit­ted to ad­dress­ing this is­sue, which al­so in­clud­ed the sale and trade of cig­a­rettes be­hind prison walls.

“We don’t in­tend to sleep for five years; there is no rest­ing for five years. Every min­is­ter, the Prime Min­is­ter has giv­en every­body a man­date in their min­istry to per­form. The first thing we were look­ing at is our man­i­festo and what we have de­liv­ered up to now, and what we in­tend to de­liv­er.”

He added that Gov­ern­ment has al­so been mov­ing to­wards de­com­mis­sion­ing the Port-of-Spain Prison, as had been pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced.

“Some move­ments shall be tak­ing place very soon with that de­vel­op­ment; there is al­so a fur­ther de­vel­op­ment that will en­gage the Gov­ern­ment’s at­ten­tion as well as the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion, as it re­lates to the new prison fa­cil­i­ty.”

Alexan­der al­so has his eyes set on plans for strength­en­ing the prison sys­tem in the up­com­ing na­tion­al Bud­get.

Mean­while, Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don yes­ter­day said the pro­posed move to bol­ster per­son­nel across prison fa­cil­i­ties was wel­comed.

“We have al­ways craved the sup­port of our broth­ers and sis­ters in arms. We op­er­ate be­hind the walls; we need the sup­port out­side the walls,” Gor­don said.

Gor­don con­firmed that he and his mem­ber­ship had met with Min­is­ter Alexan­der last week and are in sup­port of nec­es­sary prison re­forms and moves to ad­dress plagu­ing is­sues such as drone drops.

“He is very well aware of those is­sues, and it is some­thing that we re­main hope­ful, es­pe­cial­ly with the re­cent suc­cess with both pris­ons and po­lice op­er­a­tives be­ing able to make those ar­rests and in­ter­ven­tions. We are hope­ful that not on­ly is it con­tin­ued but al­so fur­ther ramped up to treat with this dis­turb­ing is­sue of drones,” he said in a ref­er­ence to the ar­rests of two sets five per­sons who were at­tempt­ing to make drone drops in­to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca last week.