RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go prison sys­tem con­tin­ues to pour hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in­to re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes that, on pa­per, are de­signed to re­form of­fend­ers—but in prac­tice are be­ing over­whelmed by en­trenched gang cul­ture, low lit­er­a­cy lev­els, weak post-re­lease sup­port, and a sys­tem in­sid­ers claim is con­tin­u­ing to churn out crim­i­nals.

Last week, Guardian Me­dia ex­plored over­crowd­ing as a key dri­ver of re­cidi­vism, as ex­perts ar­gued that T&T pris­ons are func­tion­ing more as hold­ing fa­cil­i­ties rather than cor­rec­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions. This week, the fo­cus shifts to prison gangs and the ex­tent to which they are un­der­min­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ef­forts, shap­ing in­mate be­hav­iour, and, in some cas­es, per­pet­u­at­ing cy­cles of vi­o­lence that con­tin­ue out­side the prison gates.

Last Fri­day, dur­ing the de­bate on the Pa­role Bill 2026, Jus­tice Min­is­ter and St Joseph MP De­vesh Ma­haraj said da­ta showed that more than half of peo­ple re­leased from prison go back to com­mit a crime. Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, for­mer pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Hay­den Forde said the core is­sue is not the ab­sence of pro­grammes, but the fail­ure to prop­er­ly iden­ti­fy and treat the root caus­es of crim­i­nal be­hav­iour. While some have ar­gued that lit­er­a­cy lev­els are low in prison, so pro­grammes can­not work, Forde dis­missed this ar­gu­ment.

“I wouldn’t bring fail­ures down to il­lit­er­a­cy,” Forde said. “We need to fo­cus on what we call the crim­ino­genic fac­tors—the rea­sons why per­sons are com­mit­ting crimes. Once we iden­ti­fy those, then we can de­vel­op spe­cif­ic pro­grammes to treat re­of­fend­ing be­hav­iour.”

He ex­plained that re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion can­not be one-size-fits-all.

“Re­gard­less of your ed­u­ca­tion lev­el, it doesn’t mat­ter be­cause you can tai­lor pro­grammes to suit the lev­el of ed­u­ca­tion you are at. It is about iden­ti­fy­ing caus­es of crim­i­nal be­hav­iour,” he said.

But Forde ac­knowl­edged a ma­jor struc­tur­al weak­ness: the gap be­tween re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion in cus­tody and sup­port out­side.

“We do have pro­grammes and there were suc­cess­es,” he said, “but there are in­hibitors that pre­vent them from be­ing ful­ly suc­cess­ful. If you come out and there are no in­dus­tries to ab­sorb you, you can’t find work, you can­not get your doc­u­ments, then you will like­ly re­turn to a life of crime.”

For the 2025–2026 fis­cal year, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was al­lo­cat­ed $6.366 bil­lion, with ap­prox­i­mate­ly $517 mil­lion di­rect­ed specif­i­cal­ly to the prison ser­vice for op­er­a­tional costs. Be­tween 2016 and 2023, more than $5.2 bil­lion was spent on the prison sys­tem, along­side over $200 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for re­form projects be­tween 2020 and 2025.

In­flu­ence of gangs

Mean­while, for­mer in­mates told Guardian Me­dia that some pro­grammes fail be­cause of the de­mo­ti­vat­ing at­ti­tude of some prison of­fi­cers.

An in­mate who spent decades be­hind bars said, “Some of these of­fi­cers need God. They break your spir­it if your mind isn’t strong; you will al­ways stay in crime.” A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said in­car­cer­at­ed gang­sters and crime boss­es are feared by prison of­fi­cers, who al­low them priv­i­leges.

Apart from gangs, Chap­lain of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, Kwame Clarke, spoke about a dis­turb­ing re­al­i­ty of in­doc­tri­na­tion, fear, and psy­cho­log­i­cal con­trol in­side gang struc­tures. In a video ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Clarke re­called an in­ter­ac­tion with a young man in a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­gramme who dis­closed the ex­tent of gang in­flu­ence over his be­hav­iour.

“He said, ‘Sir, this tat­too was put on all the gang mem­bers by a re­li­gious per­son in a rit­u­al. It calls me to kill peo­ple at night,’” Clarke said. “He told me some­times at night he would cold sweat be­cause he just want­ed to get up and kill peo­ple.” Clarke said some in­mates en­ter­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ex­press a gen­uine de­sire to change but strug­gle against deep psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion­ing. “The prob­lem is when they are re­leased and sent back in­to the same en­vi­ron­ment, mus­cle mem­o­ry kicks in. The peo­ple in­side that en­vi­ron­ment draw them back in,” he said.

He warned that with­out struc­tured post-re­lease in­ter­ven­tion, even suc­cess­ful re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes in­side pris­ons can be un­done with­in weeks.

“We have had stu­dents leave with promise and die with­in a month be­cause of gang re­tal­i­a­tion or in­ter­nal loy­al­ty codes—blood in, blood out,” Clarke added.

Bet­ter pro­grammes need­ed —Ram­roop

For­mer pres­i­dent of the Prison Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion, Ra­jku­mar Ram­roop, agreed that psy­cho­log­i­cal help is need­ed. He said gang ac­tiv­i­ty re­mains one of the most desta­bil­is­ing forces in­side the prison sys­tem, in­flu­enc­ing every­thing from safe­ty to re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion out­comes.

He said what ap­pears to out­siders as sense­less vi­o­lence of­ten fol­lows a struc­tured log­ic of pow­er, loy­al­ty, and con­trol.

“Vi­o­lence is of­ten per­for­ma­tive,” Ram­roop ex­plained. “It sends a mes­sage to ri­vals, builds sta­tus in­side the group, and de­ters be­tray­al. The more shock­ing the act, the more it re­in­forces that rep­u­ta­tion.” He said gang ini­ti­a­tion prac­tices and loy­al­ty tests can lock in­mates in­to cy­cles of vi­o­lence that con­tin­ue long af­ter in­car­cer­a­tion.

“Some in­mates join gangs for pro­tec­tion, but that comes with oblig­a­tions. Once you are in, leav­ing be­comes dan­ger­ous,” he said.

Ram­roop al­so point­ed to a crit­i­cal weak­ness in re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion de­liv­ery: in­con­sis­ten­cy and frag­men­ta­tion. “There are pro­grammes—lit­er­a­cy, vo­ca­tion­al train­ing, coun­selling—but ac­cess is un­even due to over­crowd­ing, staffing short­ages, and fre­quent lock­downs,” he said. “So many in­mates leave with­out re­al skills or sup­port.”

He said rein­te­gra­tion re­mains the weak­est link in the sys­tem.

“Once they are re­leased, many face stig­ma, un­em­ploy­ment, and weak so­cial sup­port. That in­creas­es the like­li­hood of re­of­fend­ing,” Ram­roop said.

Judge wants sup­port for re­formed crim­i­nals

Mean­while, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad said many of­fend­ers en­ter the prison sys­tem with his­to­ries of pover­ty, trau­ma, ad­dic­tion, poor ed­u­ca­tion­al sup­port, gang ex­po­sure, and lim­it­ed em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“If in­car­cer­a­tion mere­ly pun­ish­es with­out trans­form­ing at­ti­tudes, skills, and be­hav­iour, then the prison sys­tem risks be­com­ing a re­volv­ing door rather than a cor­rec­tive in­sti­tu­tion,” he said.

He added: “With­in so­ci­ety, there must be struc­tured rein­te­gra­tion pro­grammes which as­sist with hous­ing, job place­ment, coun­selling, men­tor­ship, and fam­i­ly sup­port.”

Seep­er­sad said busi­ness­es should be en­cour­aged to pro­vide sec­ond-chance em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly for in­di­vid­u­als who demon­strate gen­uine re­form. He al­so said that pris­on­ers must ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their ac­tions.

“A ma­ture so­ci­ety must al­so recog­nise that sus­tain­able pub­lic safe­ty is achieved not on­ly through pun­ish­ment, but through re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, rein­te­gra­tion, and pre­ven­tion,” Seep­er­sad added.

Prison pro­grammes

Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, ed­u­ca­tion and vo­ca­tion­al pro­grammes are run by the TT Prison Ser­vice, aimed at prepar­ing in­mates for rein­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety. These in­clude YTEPP vo­ca­tion­al train­ing in ar­eas such as car­pen­try, plumb­ing, weld­ing, agri­cul­ture, bak­ing, bar­ber­ing, tai­lor­ing and com­put­er lit­er­a­cy. Non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions like Man­age Em­pow­er­ment Through Net­work­ing and De­vel­op­ment (MEND), as well as Vi­sion on Mis­sion, have been do­ing post-re­lease work and men­tor­ship, of­fer­ing life skills, cog­ni­tive be­hav­iour­al ther­a­py, spir­i­tu­al guid­ance and re-en­try coun­selling. Aca­d­e­m­ic class­es range from ba­sic lit­er­a­cy up to CSEC sub­jects.

Oth­er ini­tia­tives in­clude agri­cul­tur­al projects such as grow-room farm­ing and com­mer­cial cul­ti­va­tion, coun­selling and drug re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ser­vices, and fam­i­ly and faith-based sup­port pro­grammes.