Camille Clarke

Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney has vowed to meet the de­mands of the Pris­ons Ser­vice. He said pris­ons of­fi­cers would no longer be con­sid­ered the "bas­tard child" of any min­istry. Twice in the last two weeks, pris­ons of­fi­cers at­tempt­ed to meet with Vol­ney and Prime Min­ster Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter the Pris­ons Ser­vice was trans­ferred from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to the Min­istry of Jus­tice. Those at­tempts were un­suc­cess­ful un­til yes­ter­day when the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion met with Vol­ney and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Col­in Par­tap. The meet­ing took place at the Jus­tice Min­istry, Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Port-of-Spain. Pro­mo­tions, leg­isla­tive agen­da, leg­is­la­tion to be de­bat­ed with re­gards to prison of­fi­cers, se­cu­ri­ty for of­fi­cers on and off du­ty, man­pow­er, the Pen­sion Act, the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Act, prison in­fra­struc­ture and oth­er is­sues were dis­cussed. In an in­ter­view af­ter the two-hour meet­ing, Vol­ney said: "We would con­tin­ue to col­lab­o­rate in the cor­dial at­mos­phere as to­day. "The as­so­ci­a­tion and ex­ec­u­tive team of the Min­istry of Jus­tice will work to achieve all the achiev­able ob­jec­tives that he (pres­i­dent of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion, Ceron Richards) has high­light­ed in the quick­est pos­si­ble time."

When ques­tioned why pris­ons of­fi­cers were not con­sult­ed be­fore the Prison Ser­vice was trans­ferred, Vol­ney said: "The is­sue of con­sul­ta­tion does not arise when it comes to port­fo­lio changes, that is the per­og­a­tive of the Prime Min­is­ter. We were prepar­ing for it in the past two years and that is dif­fi­cult with a large body as the Pris­ons Ser­vice when we did not have a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the be­gin­ning. There is no bas­tard child in the Min­istry of Jus­tice. In fact, the pris­ons is the on­ly child." Vol­ney said a meet­ing ear­li­er in the day with First Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers al­so was suc­cess­ful. "They all have iden­ti­fied the same prob­lems and we would be all work­ing in a tri­par­tite way. It all fell on the path­way for­ward to restora­tive jus­tice," Vol­ney said. Richards said pris­ons of­fi­cers spoke about the is­sues fac­ing the of­fi­cers and why they were not con­sult­ed be­fore the trans­fer. "You should con­sult and get all the fac­tors be­cause de­ci­sions af­fect peo­ple. I think the min­is­ter felt that some­thing bet­ter should have been done but in mov­ing for­ward they did give a com­mit­ment to ad­dress all the fears that pris­ons of­fi­cers have," he said.

How­ev­er, Richards said they were still "un­hap­py" with the de­vel­op­ment and have to be op­ti­mistic and move for­ward and, if pos­si­ble, have a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing with some is­sues. He added: "The min­is­ter said he is will­ing to open­ly have an un­der­stand­ing to move for­ward and bring back a lev­el of con­fi­dence and calm."He did pay at­ten­tion and was con­sid­ered about some of the is­sues and feels he has a du­ty to make sure those is­sues are erad­i­cat­ed from the Pris­ons Ser­vice but as an as­so­ci­a­tion we have to be vig­i­lant and make sure it is ac­tu­al­ly pur­sued." Richards said Vol­ney claimed as a for­mer lawyer he did not like the con­di­tions which pris­on­ers face in the pris­ons. "He means we are in the 21st-cen­tu­ry and in­mates are still us­ing slop pails and a back­ward arrange­ment. He will work fever­ish­ly to min­imise these con­di­tions, he added.