RHON­DOR DOWLAT

An­oth­er prison of­fi­cer was tar­get­ed in a vi­o­lent at­tack when his ve­hi­cle was fire­bombed ear­li­er this week at an undis­closed lo­ca­tion. This was the fourth at­tack on a prison of­fi­cer in just over a week. Last week, the homes of three of­fi­cers were shot at.

Lester Lo­gie, Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion, ex­pressed con­cern yes­ter­day about the on­go­ing threats to the safe­ty of of­fi­cers. He said there was the like­li­hood of more de­ten­tion or­ders be­ing signed but the pri­ma­ry con­cern is crim­i­nals who re­main out­side prison walls to car­ry out at­tacks.

“We ex­pect more de­ten­tion or­ders, but we are more con­cerned about those who are still out there and able to do these things,” Lo­gie said.

Re­gard­ing se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures for prison of­fi­cers, Lo­gie said the POA has re­peat­ed­ly called for in­creased pro­tec­tion but has not been di­rect­ly en­gaged by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds.

“The min­is­ter is stead­fast in his ap­proach that he will on­ly deal with the prison ad­min­is­tra­tion. We are an ad­vo­ca­cy group and the ad­min­is­tra­tion has a du­ty of care to all prison of­fi­cers. If they fail in that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, we must speak out,” he said

Lo­gie added that the as­so­ci­a­tion is wait­ing to see what so­lu­tions the prison ad­min­is­tra­tion pro­pos­es to deal with the es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence against of­fi­cers.