KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Two for­mer com­mis­sion­ers of pris­ons are sup­port­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to con­sid­er re­lo­cat­ing the Port-of-Spain Prison on Fred­er­ick Street.

On Thurs­day, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said the move was un­der con­sid­er­a­tion dur­ing the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day. The de­ci­sion was trig­gered by a video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia show­ing a man throw­ing bags over the prison’s wall on Thurs­day morn­ing.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has con­firmed that the sus­pect is from Dun­can Street, Port-of-Spain, and on bail for sim­i­lar of­fences but he’s yet to be ar­rest­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to for­mer pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Den­nis Pul­chan, this in­ci­dent is not an iso­lat­ed one, as he re­vealed the prison has been deal­ing with the is­sue of prison throw-over for years.

He said of­fi­cers would have to sweep the prison’s ground dai­ly as peo­ple would al­ways throw con­tra­band over the wall.

This is why, he’s joined the re­newed calls by the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion to have the prison re­moved from the cap­i­tal city.

Pul­chan said it should be re­lo­cat­ed to a more iso­lat­ed area, sug­gest­ing Ste Madeleine.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Pul­chan said, “I think it is a good ini­tia­tive to move the prison to a bet­ter lo­ca­tion, one where se­cu­ri­ty can be main­tained at a strin­gent lev­el. Where ac­cess for in­di­vid­u­als to do those un­law­ful acts as throw­ing con­tra­band could be cur­tailed, and they can be eas­i­ly ar­rest­ed.”

Join­ing the call for its re­moval, Pul­chan’s pre­de­ces­sor Ger­ard Wil­son sug­gest­ed a more cost-ef­fec­tive way to re­lo­cate pris­on­ers.

Wil­son said in­stead of spend­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey to pur­chase land and build a new prison at a dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tion, he said Gov­ern­ment should make bet­ter use of the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Arou­ca.

He said dur­ing the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship (PP) tenure, a wall was con­struct­ed at MSP with the aim of re­lo­cat­ing pris­on­ers from Car­rerra Con­vict Prison.

He added that pris­on­ers from Port-of-Spain could now be sent there, as he said there’s a lot of land that can be utilised to fa­cil­i­tate the pris­on­ers.

Wil­son said, “I think Port-of-Spain Prison, in my hon­est opin­ion,  has out­grown its use­ful­ness there, so that I would re­al­ly em­pha­sise that the Port-of-Spain Prison be re­moved from there. If Re­mand (Prison) in Gold­en Grove is com­plet­ed, be­cause there were some re­fur­bish­ment there, you can bring them there and the con­vict­ed in­mates bring them to MSP and start a re­al nice pro­gramme with re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion if they re­al­ly se­ri­ous about it.”