Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er John Rougi­er paid ku­dos to pris­on­ers who had ex­celled in mu­sic at a Christ­mas event at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Arou­ca, on De­cem­ber 4. The event was host­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Prison Fel­low­ship Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In his ad­dress, Rougi­er said that mu­sic was one of the ways in which the ser­vice would us­ing to help the pris­on­ers de­vel­op a skill. "We have mu­sic in the prison ser­vice. Sim­i­lar pro­gramme at the YTC. We took part in Best Vil­lage and we came sec­ond in Dru­mol­o­gy. It is a sig­nif­i­cant role in en­sur­ing the in­ter­ven­tions we have start­ed in the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion process for the wider so­ci­ety," he said.

He al­so ap­pealed to the fam­i­lies of the in­mates to main­tain re­la­tion­ships with their loved ones, by vis­it­ing them while they were in­car­cer­at­ed. Rougi­er al­so paid ku­dos to vol­un­teers like Judy Ram­saran, who was in­stru­men­tal in the re­fur­bish­ment of the chapel.

Among the oth­er high­lights was the dis­tri­b­u­tion of mu­sic cer­tifi­cates to in­mates Neville Glaude, Mark Durham, Nicholas Go­sine and Sel­wyn Fras­er. Mar­i­nus Ayres, alias DJ Starchild, who re­ceived a dis­tinc­tion in Mu­sic, said he was look­ing for­ward to re­turn­ing to his DJ job up­on his re­lease on De­cem­ber 17.

Eng­land res­i­dent, Lithua­nia's Alexan­der Truch­lee, 24, copped the Most Out­stand­ing Stu­dent in the Mu­sic Class. He said al­though he didn't have any friends and fam­i­ly in T&T, he felt ap­pre­ci­at­ed by the oth­er in­mates. He was in­car­cer­at­ed for drug traf­fick­ing.