Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is push­ing for a new cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty on the is­land—one large enough to keep in­mates close to their fam­i­lies and sup­port prop­er re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion—since the ex­ist­ing prison in Scar­bor­ough has been crum­bling, perched on a cliff­side and at risk of falling in­to the sea.

Due to its size, the prison can­not ac­com­mo­date many in­mates, and as a re­sult, sev­er­al are sent to Trinidad. Fam­i­ly and friends must trav­el there each time they want to vis­it.

Asked about plans for a new prison, giv­en that the cur­rent one sits on land now at risk of falling in­to the sea, Au­gus­tine told Guardian Me­dia, “Yes, in fact, we have had talks since the last regime was there,” adding that these dis­cus­sions have con­tin­ued un­der the new gov­ern­ment.

Au­gus­tine ex­plained that while of­fi­cials ini­tial­ly iden­ti­fied a site in Bel­mont for the fa­cil­i­ty, that land was lat­er re­served for agri­cul­ture.

“So we have iden­ti­fied oth­er sites. I’m wait­ing to meet with the new min­is­ters—well, in par­tic­u­lar, the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.”

But he made it clear he’s not sim­ply ask­ing for a jail.

“I agree with you in that we need cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties, not prison, not a jail­house, but cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties, be­cause it has to be about re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing those who ex­hib­it an­ti-so­cial be­hav­iours.”

He said hous­ing in­mates in To­ba­go gives their fam­i­lies bet­ter ac­cess and low­ers the risk of pris­on­ers be­com­ing more hard­ened.

“It would be best for that to hap­pen here on-is­land than them be­ing recul­tured else­where and re­turn­ing to us much more hard­ened than when they en­tered.”

Au­gus­tine said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly is al­ready do­ing its part.

“Cer­tain­ly, the THA is sup­port­ing so far by pro­vid­ing the lands. What we’re look­ing at is a cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty—a place where they could farm, where they could [learn] new skills, where they can do CXC’s, where they can get ac­cred­it­ed pro­grammes, learn new skills with their hands, trades, and so on.”

He made it clear this is not just about hous­ing crim­i­nals.

“So they’re not just go­ing to a place where their fed­er­al tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars feed them three times a day or two times a day, and [they] come back fat and worse off than when they went in,” he said.

“We want them to re­turn to our so­ci­ety bet­ter than when they went in. That has to be the in­tent.”

He con­firmed his ad­min­is­tra­tion has worked di­rect­ly with the prison ser­vice since tak­ing of­fice.

“We con­tin­ue col­lab­o­rat­ing. In fact, some of the pro­grammes from com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment are of­fered to the pris­on­ers in prison.”

He has vis­it­ed the Scar­bor­ough prison twice and con­firmed the struc­ture is in dan­ger due to its lo­ca­tion.

“That is can­tilever­ing on a cliff­side over the At­lantic Ocean in Scar­bor­ough. So you can imag­ine the chal­lenges with the sea sprays, with the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of the foun­da­tion, and so on. So it is at risk where it is, es­pe­cial­ly with cli­mate change is­sues and ris­ing sea lev­els.”

To sup­port pris­on­er re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion now, Au­gus­tine said the THA is al­so work­ing on a farm­ing project with the prison.

“We’re look­ing at pro­vid­ing sup­port through a shared house, so they could do much more ex­ten­sive agri­cul­ture. There’s some more farm­ing where they’re at.”

He said the An­gli­can Church has al­ready grant­ed land in the area.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “the THA is for the peo­ple of To­ba­go… I don’t care about the law. I must de­liv­er some­thing to them to al­le­vi­ate their prob­lems. That’s just the way I see it.”