Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Two pro­posed in­fra­struc­tur­al projects aimed at en­hanc­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ef­fi­cien­cies have been wel­comed by lo­cal se­cu­ri­ty stake­hold­ers, but one as­so­ci­a­tion head is urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to in­vest in main­tain­ing fa­cil­i­ties to en­sure suc­cess.

Dur­ing the launch of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print on Thurs­day, Gov­ern­ment high­light­ed the con­struc­tion of a Tamana Cen­tre for Jus­tice to house pris­on­ers of var­i­ous cat­e­gories, fa­cil­i­tate on-site court hear­ings, and ac­com­mo­date re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and agri­cul­tur­al pro­grammes, among oth­er fea­tures.

Ac­cord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment, the fa­cil­i­ty is en­vi­sioned to cov­er 500 acres of land, mak­ing it the largest piece of prison in­fra­struc­ture in lo­cal his­to­ry.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Hay­den Forde said the project promised a vast im­prove­ment in the qual­i­ty of life for in­mates and the ef­fi­cien­cies of prison of­fi­cers, as he was hope­ful it could ma­te­ri­alise.

Forde ad­mit­ted that prison in­fra­struc­ture was aged, not­ing that some parts may even be con­sid­ered “com­pro­mised” as he felt it was un­fair for prison of­fi­cers and in­mates to con­tin­ue oc­cu­py­ing these fa­cil­i­ties.

He, there­fore, laud­ed the Gov­ern­ment for its projects, not­ing that the lo­ca­tion of the com­plex could be a de­fence against se­cu­ri­ty threats and smug­gling op­er­a­tions.

“I’m of the opin­ion that prison-plex to me will solve the vast ma­jor­i­ty of our is­sues that we have been plagued with for many years.

“I can see where traf­fick­ing will be sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced, if not erad­i­cat­ed. I can see where the plight of drones can be ad­dressed. I can see where some­one would not be able to make a call out, be­cause when we put our fre­quen­cy there, there will be few res­i­den­tial ar­eas that should not be ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed by hav­ing jam­mers in­stalled.

“And al­so, where staffing is con­cerned, we can con­cen­trate our staff in a par­tic­u­lar place; if any­thing hap­pens, we can have these peo­ple ren­der as­sis­tance to fel­low of­fi­cers.”

Forde said the prison ser­vice has been part of dis­cus­sions with the Gov­ern­ment on the Tamana Cen­tre, not­ing that prison of­fi­cers would be in­volved in the de­sign phase of the project us­ing best prac­tice to en­hance prac­ti­cal­i­ty.

Asked if he felt the project was re­al­is­tic giv­en the size, Forde said it was worth work­ing to­wards, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the per­cep­tion and fear of crime among the pub­lic.

“We have to ad­dress the crime sit­u­a­tion, and part of ad­dress­ing it is hav­ing prop­er prison in­fra­struc­ture that will re­duce the in­ci­dence of peo­ple hav­ing ac­cess to con­tra­band and mak­ing calls and call­ing shots on peo­ple on the out­side.

“So I’m se­ri­ous­ly be­liev­ing this would work and in the long run, T&T could def­i­nite­ly be a safer place.”

Pres­i­dent of the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Ger­ard Gor­don, said he was al­so op­ti­mistic that the cre­ation of the Tamana Jus­tice Cen­tre would en­hance the ef­fi­cien­cy of prison of­fi­cers on the job, cit­ing re­peat­ed com­plaints over the qual­i­ty of in­fra­struc­ture.

Gor­don said he was im­pressed with the lev­el of de­tail paid to the fa­cil­i­ty, in­clud­ing a pos­si­ble re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and train­ing cen­tre that would as­sist with pro­grammes to re-en­ter so­ci­ety on their re­lease.

He, how­ev­er, urged the Gov­ern­ment to in­vest in main­te­nance for these fa­cil­i­ties once con­struct­ed to avoid them falling in­to dis­re­pair.

“For me, whether lofty, I think some­times we need to dream and not on­ly dream, but have the dreams fol­lowed by ac­tion, and I think once the Gov­ern­ment makes the nec­es­sary ad­vance­ments and in­vites the nec­es­sary in­vest­ment, and we work to­geth­er, this plan can on­ly re­sound to the ben­e­fit of every cit­i­zen in T&T.”

An­oth­er ma­jor project pro­posed by Gov­ern­ment was the cre­ation of a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Cam­pus at Mt Hope, which is pro­ject­ed to cov­er 40 acres of land.

The cam­pus, ac­cord­ing to the pre­sen­ta­tion, is ex­pect­ed to “uni­fy vi­tal op­er­a­tions, elim­i­nate frag­men­ta­tion and el­e­vate T&T’s readi­ness to re­spond, pro­tect and pre­vent threats,” by al­low­ing for re­al-time da­ta col­lec­tion and in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing.

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert and for­mer head of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC), Garvin Heer­ah, al­so com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment for their ap­proach in en­vi­sion­ing such a fa­cil­i­ty, de­scrib­ing it as “com­mend­able.”

Heer­ah said such fa­cil­i­ties played a vi­tal role in the mod­ern crime-fight by keep­ing pace with rapid­ly evolv­ing do­mes­tic se­cu­ri­ty threats, but stressed that, in ad­di­tion to in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ments, equal con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to the well-be­ing of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.

“The morale and wel­fare of the men and women who serve on the front­lines of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty should be giv­en equal pri­or­i­ty be­cause these in­di­vid­u­als con­tin­ue to per­form un­der in­tense pres­sure and risk.”

Pres­i­dent-elect of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA), act­ing ASP Ish­mael Pitt, said he was al­so op­ti­mistic that the in­fra­struc­ture would en­hance their op­er­a­tional ef­fec­tive­ness.

“Any boost to­wards our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus that can as­sist us in law en­force­ment is wel­comed with open arms, so it’s a step in the right di­rec­tion, and we trust it will come in­to be­ing in the short­est pos­si­ble time.”