SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Cell­phones be­hind bars and con­tract killings or­dered by in­mates have plagued Trinidad and To­ba­go’s prison sys­tem. From chron­ic over­crowd­ing and poor in­fra­struc­ture to lim­it­ed re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and staff short­ages, the prison sys­tem is break­ing down from with­in.

Just hours af­ter Gov­ern­ment in­tel­li­gence un­cov­ered a plot to as­sas­si­nate State of­fi­cials from with­in prison walls, for­mer pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Ger­ard Wil­son warned that cell­phone smug­gling re­mains the sys­tem’s biggest chal­lenge. As long as in­mates have ac­cess to mo­bile phones, no one is safe—not of­fi­cers, not ri­vals, not even high-rank­ing of­fi­cials.

“It al­ways hap­pens,” Wil­son said. “Once of­fend­ers get ac­cess to cell­phones, there will be con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween per­sons in­side and out­side of prison. And that is where the prob­lem lies.”

His com­ments came short­ly af­ter the UNC Gov­ern­ment de­clared a State of Emer­gency (SoE) in re­sponse to the as­sas­si­na­tion plot, which had been or­ches­trat­ed from with­in the prison sys­tem.

“It al­ways hap­pens. You have to make an as­sess­ment in terms of se­cu­ri­ty. You have to find your tar­get. De­pend­ing on where the threat is, they may do some con­fig­u­ra­tion with the in­mates to en­sure that it would be eas­i­er to man­age it,” Wil­son said.

On Fri­day, the Gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed to re­lo­cate some in­mates to mil­i­tary sites in Ch­aguara­mas. Wil­son said such moves help en­sure pub­lic safe­ty.

In 2023, the prison con­fis­cat­ed 411 cell­phones, ac­cord­ing to then-na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds. It was al­so re­port­ed that 20 con­tract killings were or­dered on pris­on­ers for that year.

Over the years, dozens of prison of­fi­cers have been wound­ed and gunned down, Wil­son said.

Now serv­ing as cor­po­rate ser­vices man­ag­er at Vi­sion on Mis­sion, Wil­son re­flect­ed on his tenure as com­mis­sion­er. He said the In­ter-Agency Task Force and the T&T Pris­ons Ser­vice had worked to­geth­er to pre­vent cell­phones and il­lic­it items from en­ter­ing pris­ons, par­tic­u­lar­ly where high-pro­file in­mates were held.

He re­called that the pre­ven­tion sys­tem was once rigid and suc­cess­ful.

Al­though that method re­mains in use to­day, Wil­son said the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty may need to re­assess its ap­proach mov­ing for­ward.

Asked about the ef­fec­tive­ness of the jam­mers and grab­bers—tools in­tend­ed to block pris­on­ers from us­ing cell­phones—Wil­son said, “That’s a par­tic­u­lar is­sue that has haunt­ed us all the time. It’s all about tech­nol­o­gy. And I keep say­ing, once you can make it, you can break it.”

Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion ques­tions tech­nol­o­gy

In re­sponse to the plot, the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) is­sued a state­ment ques­tion­ing whether the jam­mers are ac­tu­al­ly work­ing or mere­ly for show, giv­en that in­mates con­tin­ue to use phones.

“Yet, every day our of­fi­cers con­fis­cate mo­bile phones from in­mates … phones that are clear­ly ac­tive and func­tion­ing. So, who is re­al­ly hold­ing the switch? The si­lence of these ques­tions is deaf­en­ing,” the POA state­ment read.

Wil­son said ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, Google, and oth­er ad­vance­ments have en­abled tech-savvy pris­on­ers to stay ahead.

“They (in­mates) find clever ways of still get­ting the ser­vice based on what type of phones or who is the provider of the ser­vice. You have AI, you have so many things you have to con­tend with. They are very clever com­ing in­to the sys­tem. Some of them are versed in tech­nol­o­gy. They know how to mo­bilise cer­tain things. So the Gov­ern­ment has to move a step ahead. They have to up­grade and plan.”

Wil­son al­so re­called in­ci­dents of drones drop­ping con­tra­band in­to pris­ons—some­thing the POA said con­tin­ues to­day.

Prison Ser­vice’s role

and need for at­ten­tion

“I don’t know when we will wake up and re­alise that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice is an in­te­gral part of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem,” Wil­son said.

He added that the sys­tem on­ly gar­ners at­ten­tion when the Gov­ern­ment de­clares a SoE.

“So every­body is con­cerned now, and then you want to do, you know, what­ev­er it takes to make things bet­ter. But you have to con­stant­ly un­der­stand who is in the sys­tem. You have to get in­tel­li­gence and un­der­stand what is hap­pen­ing with them (pris­on­ers) … what they’re do­ing and are they a threat to so­ci­ety?”

Hav­ing served from 2017 to 2020, Wil­son said there should be no com­pro­mise on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or prison op­er­a­tions.

He be­lieves far more em­pha­sis must be placed on the prison ser­vice.

“I don’t think there’s enough spend­ing and em­pha­sis on up­grad­ing and do­ing things we are sup­posed to do. I hon­est­ly don’t feel so, and this is what we have to look at.”

He not­ed that in cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties world­wide, prison sys­tems typ­i­cal­ly don’t in­flu­ence po­lit­i­cal agen­das. In­stead, they re­ceive ad­e­quate fund­ing and fo­cus less on re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion for re­mand­ed pris­on­ers.

“So what I am try­ing to say is, who re­al­ly cares?”

So­ci­ety’s view of

pris­on­ers and crime

Wil­son cau­tioned that if so­ci­ety con­tin­ues to view pris­on­ers as out­casts, they will in­flu­ence oth­ers to adopt the same mind­set.

“You see, we look at crime on the sur­face, but it’s much more than that. We have to con­sid­er each in­mate as some­body and work with them to re­duce crime.”

He said such mat­ters re­quire swift at­ten­tion.

Wil­son de­scribed prison as a mi­cro­cosm of so­ci­ety.

“The same be­hav­iours you have on the out­side are go­ing to fil­ter in­to the sys­tem.”

He added that when a gang or com­mu­ni­ty leader is in­car­cer­at­ed, their in­flu­ence of­ten leads to re­tal­i­a­tion or un­rest among their sup­port­ers on the out­side.

“If you no­tice when po­lice go to ar­eas now, you see how these per­sons be­have. They be­come vi­o­lent and ag­gres­sive be­cause these peo­ple (gang lead­ers) are he­roes to them. They help them out. They pro­vide for them.”

Cor­rup­tion among of­fi­cers

Wil­son said the prob­lem of prison of­fi­cers smug­gling con­tra­band in­to fa­cil­i­ties stems from two main fac­tors: mon­ey and fear.

First­ly, it’s a lu­cra­tive busi­ness for those seek­ing ex­tra in­come. Sec­ond­ly, some of­fi­cers en­gage in traf­fick­ing due to threats and in­tim­i­da­tion.

“You have those (prison of­fi­cers) who would col­lect items from per­sons out­side be­cause they fear for their lives … they live in at-risk com­mu­ni­ties. That cre­ates the traf­fick­ing.”

He said pris­on­ers may pay up to $3,000 for a ba­sic cell­phone. A cig­a­rette can cost $100–$200. One gram of mar­i­jua­na fetch­es $50, while a high-grade ‘ten piece’ can run be­tween $800 and $1,000. A ‘ball’ goes for $60.

Dur­ing his tenure, Wil­son said at least a dozen of­fi­cers were charged with traf­fick­ing. He not­ed that the prob­lem has since wors­ened.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe, but he did not re­spond.