SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

When De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar as­sumed of­fice as Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er in Feb­ru­ary 2022, he was pre­pared to face re­sis­tance from the prison pop­u­la­tion.

It turned out that the 3,059 men and women be­hind bars were the least of his wor­ries. His biggest chal­lenge was deal­ing with op­po­si­tion from a small group of “neg­a­tive” prison of­fi­cers un­der his charge.

Ra­moutar spoke to the Sun­day Guardian on a wide range of is­sues dur­ing an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view at the Pris­ons Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, last week. June 5 will be Ra­moutar’s last day on the job af­ter serv­ing for al­most 36 years. He will pro­ceed on va­ca­tion and re­tire on Oc­to­ber 30.

De­fend­ing the prison ser­vice, Ra­moutar said, “The po­lice have more crooked of­fi­cers than us, the fire ser­vice has crooked of­fi­cers, the army has crooked of­fi­cers, cus­toms, li­cens­ing of­fices, and I can go on. It is not pe­cu­liar to the prison ser­vice.”

But, for speak­ing out against dis­hon­est or crooked of­fi­cers in the pris­ons, Ra­moutar said, he be­came “un­pop­u­lar with some peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly with the staff mem­bers who have giv­en me a push­back or re­sis­tance to what I am do­ing.”

“We have a hand­ful of of­fi­cers who are un­de­sir­able and shouldn’t be in the ser­vice. I make no qualms about say­ing that ... and I have locked up quite a few of them.” 

These un­de­sir­able of­fi­cers, ac­cord­ing to Ra­moutar, “have the mind­set of some crim­i­nal in­mates, un­for­tu­nate­ly,” and al­so worked in col­lu­sion with pris­on­ers to con­duct il­le­gal op­er­a­tions in jail.

Of the 3,000 plus prison of­fi­cers in the sys­tem, Ra­moutar said 12 were ar­rest­ed and charged un­der his stew­ard­ship for bring­ing il­le­gal cell­phones, cig­a­rettes, and mar­i­jua­na in­to the prison.

Some were even caught “red-hand­ed” en­ter­ing the prison with con­tra­band fol­low­ing a sting op­er­a­tion.

Now on sus­pen­sion with half and three-quar­ters of their month­ly pay, Ra­moutar said the of­fi­cers have re­tained “crafty lawyers” who run to their side. “They have mech­a­nisms. They get bail very ear­ly—the same day they are held. They don’t get to spend a night in prison as a de­ter­rent. When they get bail, the of­fi­cers laugh at us.”

To com­pound mat­ters, Ra­moutar said when the cas­es are called in court, the po­lice do not ap­pear, re­sult­ing in the mag­is­trate dis­miss­ing the mat­ter.

“To me, that is a slap in the face of jus­tice and what we do.”

 Hits from prison, gangs in jail

Asked about hits be­ing or­dered by in­mates from with­in prison walls, Ra­moutar said that ques­tion should be di­rect­ed to the po­lice. Ra­moutar, how­ev­er, did not de­ny that gangs op­er­ate in jail. What the pris­ons have been pre­vent­ing is gang ri­val­ry and its mem­bers at­tack­ing each oth­er. “We have sep­a­ra­tion, re­lo­ca­tion to man­age that ten­sion that could de­vel­op,” he said.

He said pris­on­ers have been us­ing il­le­gal cell­phones to com­mu­ni­cate with peo­ple on the out­side and they talk to vis­i­tors in codes.

“That is the chal­lenge of fight­ing crime; you can­not stop them from speak­ing a sim­ple lan­guage.”

Every morn­ing, be­fore pris­on­ers are let out for air­ing, search­es are con­duct­ed in the cells. The search­es are now manda­to­ry in light of the in­crease in drones drop­ping off con­tra­band at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) at night.

Videos of items be­ing smug­gled in­to the prison us­ing drones were even post­ed on so­cial me­dia by in­mates.

Ad­mit­ting that crim­i­nals have be­come very in­no­v­a­tive with tech­nol­o­gy, Ra­moutar said they have been try­ing to stop the il­le­gal drop-offs.

“I sup­pose some of the items are per­haps beat­ing us and get­ting in be­cause the drones keep com­ing. We are coun­ter­ing that by hav­ing dai­ly search­es be­fore in­mates are let out.”

Some of the search­es have led to cig­a­rettes, cell­phones, and mar­i­jua­na val­ued at “thou­sands of dol­lars” be­ing seized. Ra­moutar said no il­le­gal guns or co­caine were found.

“Soon the abil­i­ty of the drones to make those drops will be a thing of the past,” he added.

Con­tra­bands are al­so smug­gled in­to the prison through the tra­di­tion­al chan­nels.

The mar­i­jua­na and cig­a­rettes are sold to in­mates. He said if the de­mand is high and the sup­ply is low, in­mates can pay $50 for one cig­a­rette and $100 for a joint.

Ra­moutar said the seizures have dwin­dled com­pared to what was con­fis­cat­ed in the past.

“We got about a dozen cell­phones, some charg­ers, weed, and cig­a­rettes in the last two years.”

The MSP hous­es high-pro­file pris­on­ers such as Ra­jaee Ali, De­vaughn Cum­mings, Ish­mael Ali, Ri­car­do Stew­art, Earl Richards, Gareth Wise­man, Hamid Ali, Kevin Parkin­son, Le­ston Gon­za­les, and Ro­get Bouch­er.

In 2020, these men were ac­cused of mur­der­ing se­nior at­tor­ney and for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Dana Seetha­hal and com­mit­ted to stand tri­al.

Seetha­hal was gunned down in 2014. Ten years lat­er, the men are yet to face tri­al.

 ‘Pris­ons Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion help­ing to fight ad­min­is­tra­tion’

Un­der his lead­er­ship, Ra­moutar said one prison of­fi­cer was as­sas­si­nat­ed.

Last year, gun­men at­tacked Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Sher­win Bruce.

Al­though Bruce es­caped, his dri­ver was shot twice. How­ev­er, close to 30 of­fi­cers have been killed over the last 34 years.

On the oth­er hand, Ra­moutar said prison of­fi­cers get help from the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion to fight the ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Hav­ing worked for six years in the as­so­ci­a­tion as sec­ond vice pres­i­dent, Ra­moutar said he knows all the dy­nam­ics.

In re­cent times, Ra­moutar said, the as­so­ci­a­tion at­tacked him, and “any­one lis­ten­ing to their ar­gu­ments can know it’s a push­back.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion, he said, re­fused to buy in­to his vi­sion.

Ra­moutar said he would go all out to as­sist of­fi­cers who are with­out re­sources. “So maybe if I have my way, the as­so­ci­a­tion would be­come null and void be­cause I am ad­dress­ing all the is­sues of of­fi­cers. So for them to be rel­e­vant, they must come out on bac­cha­nal things.”

Asked if he took a hard-line ap­proach to his of­fi­cers or was too harsh on his men, Ra­moutar replied, “I don’t think I was harsh enough.”

‘Game chang­er’

As Ra­moutar gets set to make his ex­it, he ad­mit­ted to hav­ing bit­ter­sweet feel­ings.

In the 27 months he served as com­mis­sion­er, what he con­sid­ers a short stint, Ra­moutar said the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of in­mates was his fo­cal point.

Ra­moutar wished he had more time to “iron out those kinks in the ser­vice. I will miss walk­ing among the in­mates who call me fa­ther. At times, it was dif­fi­cult.”

He re­ferred to him­self as a “game chang­er” for win­ning over the hearts and minds of sea­soned crim­i­nals, some of whom are on death row and re­mand.

Ra­moutar said he al­lowed pris­on­ers to have pic­nic-style vis­its with their spous­es and chil­dren three times a year. He took a risk by al­low­ing fam­i­lies of in­mates to bring home-cooked meals in­to the prison where they could sit and have lunch to­geth­er. It cre­at­ed a bond be­tween the in­mates and their loved ones.

“The in­mates have been so ap­pre­cia­tive of that. It has pos­i­tive­ly changed the pris­on­ers’ be­hav­iour. We have been able to man­age the prison more eas­i­ly with just words of mo­ti­va­tion and in­spi­ra­tion. You have to un­der­stand how hu­man be­ings think and be­have. The prison ser­vice can on­ly func­tion smooth­ly with the co­op­er­a­tion of the in­mates.”

Ra­moutar, who spoke about his achieve­ments and hur­dles in man­ag­ing the coun­try’s pris­ons with its end­less prob­lems, said they al­so plant­ed seeds of bet­ter­ment and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in the in­mates’ minds.

“And it is work­ing. The meth­ods are not new, but I am plac­ing more fo­cus on it.”

He said there has al­so been a high de­mand for pro­grammes by pris­on­ers that can as­sist with le­nien­cy in their court mat­ters.

“The feed­back from the prison pop­u­la­tion has been glo­ri­fy­ing. It tells me I am do­ing some­thing right. I re­ceive tremen­dous love from the in­mates, and I re­turn that love to them pro­fes­sion­al­ly.”

Through train­ing, spir­i­tu­al de­vel­op­ment, and me­di­a­tion, Ra­moutar said his of­fi­cers have been treat­ing and heal­ing the in­mates.

“Many of them are hard-work­ing and ded­i­cat­ed of­fi­cers.”

How­ev­er, he said the down­fall of some of­fi­cers was that they ex­pect too much from pris­on­ers. “We give the in­mates a yard­stick par­al­lel to our­selves.”

He said the prison has been evolv­ing with mod­ern man­age­ment and crit­i­cal thinkers. 

“We are strength­en­ing the im­age of the ser­vice, and it is here to stay. I think I have made the prison an at­trac­tive place to work.” 

When the prison ad­ver­tised for re­cruits last year, Ra­moutar said he was shocked that over 12,000 peo­ple had ap­plied for the 300 po­si­tions avail­able.

The ma­jor­i­ty of the ap­pli­cants were women, “many of whom had uni­ver­si­ty de­grees. The ap­pli­ca­tions sur­passed our ex­pec­ta­tions.”

He said if peo­ple did not feel safe work­ing in prison, they would not have ap­plied.

As he winds down his last days, Ra­moutar said he has achieved his mis­sion while sit­ting at the helm of the prison. 

Win­ning lit­i­ga­tion

Ear­li­er this month, Ra­moutar won an­oth­er round of lit­i­ga­tion against the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) over the fill­ing of se­nior va­can­cies in the ser­vice. 

In the re­cent judg­ment, High Court Judge Na­dia Kan­ga­loo up­held Ra­moutar’s law­suit in which he chal­lenged a de­ci­sion by the PSC to “skip ranks” by seek­ing to fill the po­si­tion of deputy com­mis­sion­er with­out first ad­dress­ing va­can­cies at the low­er ranks of the se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent and as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­er.

Ra­moutar, who has been act­ing in a po­si­tion four times high­er than his sub­stan­tive rank of su­per­in­ten­dent for more than two years, claimed the PSC breached an es­tab­lished prison ser­vice pro­mo­tion pol­i­cy and prac­tice and its reg­u­la­tions.

In 2021, Ra­moutar filed a law­suit against the PSC over its move to in­tro­duce a com­pe­ten­cy-based in­ter­view af­ter he topped the list of can­di­dates for pro­mo­tion to the rank of se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent based on cri­te­ria set in 2014 and was await­ing retroac­tive pro­mo­tion.

When the case was first filed, Ra­moutar ob­tained an in­junc­tion block­ing the PSC from fill­ing per­ma­nent va­can­cies pend­ing the out­come. How­ev­er, the PSC was still per­mit­ted to make act­ing ap­point­ments and ap­point­ed Ra­moutar to act in the top post fol­low­ing the re­tire­ment of for­mer pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Den­nis Pul­chan in ear­ly 2022.

Hav­ing ful­filled his du­ties, Ra­moutar is ready to re­tire, spend time with his fam­i­ly, and en­joy his hob­bies of fish­ing and hunt­ing.

On his suc­ces­sor, Ra­moutar said, “The Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion will de­cide who is the next Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er.”

Of the three deputy com­mis­sion­ers, Ra­moutar said two “are ear­marked for the po­si­tion.”

Prison sta­tis­tics in T&T

To­tal prison pop­u­la­tion: 3,059

Males-2,953

Fe­males-106

Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison: 1,663

 Port-of-Spain-441

Car­rera Con­vict Prison-185

Youth Trans­for­ma­tion and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (YTRC)-41

YTRC fe­male-2

In­mates:

Re­mand­ed-1,884

Con­vict­ed-1,175

Death Row (con­demned)-35

In­mates charged:

Mur­der-1,522

Armed rob­bery-167

Rob­bery with vi­o­lence-130

Rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion-35

Kid­nap­ping-31

 Gor­don: We are hap­py to see him go

On Fri­day, pres­i­dent of the as­so­ci­a­tion, Ger­ard Gor­don, said they do not sup­port of­fi­cers who are charged and found guilty of traf­fick­ing.

Gor­don said all pris­ons have is­sues with con­tra­band.

“I am at my wit’s end when I have the head of the de­part­ment who would want to give the im­pres­sion that this is some­thing so spe­cial that is hap­pen­ing.”

He said se­nior prison staff are not sub­ject­ed to search­es up­on en­ter­ing the na­tion’s pris­ons.

“Mr Ra­moutar does not sub­ject him­self to a search when he is en­ter­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s prison. So no se­nior staff mem­ber does any­thing bad?”

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion takes the is­sue of con­tra­band very se­ri­ous­ly.

Gor­don said the as­so­ci­a­tion has many is­sues with Ra­moutar.

“And we are hap­py to see him leave. He has done noth­ing but frus­trate, un­der­mine, abuse, cas­ti­gate, and sep­a­rate of­fi­cers. And one on­ly has to take a cur­so­ry glance at the mat­ters we have won in court against the of­fice of the com­mis­sion­er of pris­ons while he has been at the helm, based on the de­ci­sions he made.”