SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Cor­rup­tion among a small clique of prison of­fi­cers over the years has brought the prison sys­tem to its knees. Or­gan­ised crime and silent com­plic­i­ty have turned Trinidad and To­ba­go’s prison sys­tem in­to a breed­ing ground for chaos, dri­ven not just by the pris­on­ers but by those en­trust­ed to guard them. Be­hind these walls, the line be­tween law en­forcer and law­break­er is dan­ger­ous­ly blurred, and the con­se­quences are dead­ly for some of­fi­cers.

Prison au­thor­i­ties said two per cent of the 2,700 of­fi­cers have not been op­er­at­ing with­in the law, and their ac­tions have put the lives of the re­main­ing 98 per cent at risk.

When caught, of­fi­cers are sus­pend­ed with half or three-quar­ters of their pay. To com­pound mat­ters, the po­lice some­times fail to ap­pear in court, re­sult­ing in the mag­is­trate dis­miss­ing the case. And when they win their cas­es, the State has to pay them. The of­fi­cers would re­turn to work, and it’s back to square one, the prison au­thor­i­ties re­veal.

What hap­pens in­side the prison walls tells an alarm­ing sto­ry. It’s rogue of­fi­cers, threats to life, drone-dropped con­tra­band, and a deeply frac­tured jus­tice sys­tem that many be­lieve is now fu­elling and not fight­ing crime.

‘Our lives don’t mat­ter’

Pres­i­dent of the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion Ger­ard Gor­don doesn’t mince words.

“This crime syn­di­cate, crime on the whole–the fact is that we have lost 32 of­fi­cers in just about two decades,” he said. “That threat is al­ways present, and it con­tin­ues un­til the State in­ter­venes in a pos­i­tive way to ad­dress that par­tic­u­lar oc­cur­rence.”

One of­fi­cer has been liv­ing in a safe house for 13 years. Oth­ers have re­signed, tak­en ear­ly re­tire­ment, or live with deep trau­ma. The ca­su­al­ties aren’t just the re­sult of crim­i­nal threats, but of­fi­cers tell of a sys­tem that con­tin­ues to aban­don its own.

“Be­cause of (pris­on­er’s name called), a lot of of­fi­cers have died. That is the be­lief. Whether it is re­al or not, that is the be­lief,” Gor­don said. “We have been say­ing, in the prison, for a long time that our lives don’t mat­ter.”

The sense of ne­glect, the of­fi­cers be­lieve, is deep.

“So while every­body run­ning around, the DPP un­der threat, and this one un­der threat, they have their se­cu­ri­ty de­tail. I am cer­tain the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ain’t mov­ing around by him­self ...”

Then came the sting­ing ques­tion from Gor­don: “Are we liv­ing in an an­i­mal farm where some lives are more im­por­tant than oth­ers?”

Mur­dered for food

The right to re­ceive out­side food may seem in­no­cent, even hu­mane. But in­side the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP), it’s a loaded is­sue. It is one tied to cor­rup­tion, con­trol, and even mur­der.

Gor­don re­called how act­ing su­per­in­ten­dent Wayne Jack­son was gunned down out­side his Mal­abar home on Oc­to­ber 2, 2018, be­cause he re­fused to al­low food to come in­to Build­ing 13 at MSP, a no­to­ri­ous wing where cor­rup­tion had tak­en root.

“It’s food, you know ... they kill Wayne Jack­son for food,” he said.

Fol­low­ing Jack­son’s killing, Gor­don said he had to ask an in­tel­li­gence agency dur­ing a meet­ing if they knew Jack­son was a tar­get: “And the whole room got silent.”

Gor­don re­called a deep freeze in­side one prison was be­ing used to store raw meat brought in from out­side. It was cooked for re­li­gious ob­ser­vances, but the vol­ume was alarm­ing.

“Peo­ple bring in meat and what­not that is stored in this spe­cif­ic deep freeze for peo­ple to get what­ev­er meals are pre­pared.”

In­mates have shared meals of wild meat, cur­ries, stews, and roti—dish­es more fit­ting of a catered event than a cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty.

One dis­turb­ing mem­o­ry stood out for Gor­don.

“I re­mem­ber a video, and I was so shocked. They’re boast­ing they’re eat­ing wild meat.”

Be­tween 2006 and 2007, a hack­saw blade was found in food. The warn­ings have been clear for years. Gor­don said the as­so­ci­a­tion has long op­posed the grant­i­ng of cer­tain items—main­ly pre­pared meals and raw meat.

“I would say that out­side di­et is a big, big prob­lem. I would have writ­ten the draft pol­i­cy to change how we do vis­its. As it is now, any­body could come to the prison and vis­it. We need to have more con­trol over our space. This is not a place that you op­er­ate free-hand­ed. And, with­out thought, there are ram­i­fi­ca­tions for things.”

Gor­don lament­ed, “It’s al­most as if we haven’t learnt. This is not a ho­tel.”

It’s not just of­fi­cers un­der sus­pi­cion. Vis­i­tors have long played a role in the move­ment of banned items in­to prison.

Gor­don de­scribed how mon­ey, mar­i­jua­na, and cig­a­rettes were found con­cealed in waist­bands and hems of pants. Oth­ers were hid­den in­side slip­pers.

These smug­gling meth­ods are so­phis­ti­cat­ed but rarely caught. En­force­ment is in­con­sis­tent.

Cre­ativ­i­ty be­comes a threat

In­mates have found ways to ex­plore their cre­ativ­i­ty in the most alarm­ing ways.

Gor­don shared how an in­mate—through care­ful ob­ser­va­tion of a gate’s open­ing and clos­ing—man­aged to carve a func­tion­ing wood­en key.

“When we put the key in the lock, you know it worked.”

Of­fi­cers al­so found a two-stroke en­gine in­side a cell, craft­ed from Bris­tol board, slip­pers, news­pa­pers, and bread.

“The en­gine had a cylin­der block, head, and ex­haust, every­thing ...” Gor­don said.

On the out­side, it may seem like in­ge­nu­ity. How­ev­er, it’s a re­minder of how the sys­tem en­ables ma­nip­u­la­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and es­cape.

Up to 40 drone drops at­tempt­ed dai­ly

While some coun­tries use drones to sur­veil pris­ons, in T&T, they’re be­ing used to sup­ply pris­on­ers with con­tra­band.

Gor­don said up to 40 drone drops are at­tempt­ed in a sin­gle day.

“We have the is­sue where some­times you have 30 to 40 (drone) drops be­ing at­tempt­ed in one day. We get some, we don’t get oth­ers.”

Asked whether drones could de­liv­er weapons or am­mu­ni­tion, he replied with­out hes­i­ta­tion: “Yes”.

While the prison sys­tem is chal­lenged, the tech­nol­o­gy to pre­vent this al­ready ex­ists near­by.

“Pi­ar­co Air­port has ge­ofenc­ing to stop drones en­ter­ing their air­space. Why can’t we em­ploy that sort of tech­nol­o­gy here?” Gor­don asked.

Plots in jail cells

Dur­ing a de­bate in Par­lia­ment on ex­tend­ing the State of Emer­gency (SoE), it was re­vealed that ten in­mates from MSP had to be re­lo­cat­ed to Teteron Bar­racks af­ter a plot was un­cov­ered to as­sas­si­nate high-lev­el gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

Short­ly af­ter, three drones were spot­ted in­fil­trat­ing Staubles Bay and Teteron be­tween Thurs­day and Sat­ur­day. The T&T De­fence Force re­spond­ed swift­ly.

Gor­don was blunt. “If you put marked gang lead­ers to­geth­er for years, what do you think will hap­pen? Ent they go­ing to talk? Ent they go­ing to re­alise the en­e­my of my en­e­my is my friend?”

The State, he said, cre­at­ed a space for them to or­gan­ise.

“They’ve be­come mas­ters of their own space.”

Jus­tice de­layed

But the is­sue isn’t on­ly in­side the pris­ons.

Gor­don point­ed out that three-quar­ters of T&T’s prison pop­u­la­tion is on re­mand, await­ing tri­al for years.

He asked, “When the SoE comes to an end in Oc­to­ber, does it mean that the chal­lenges for the prison ser­vice, all of a sud­den, will mag­i­cal­ly go away?”

Gor­don said there was a prob­lem that no­body wants to ad­dress. “If peo­ple are be­ing ar­rest­ed, charged, and im­pris­oned, there must be a time­line to con­vict or set them free.”

The back­log of cas­es, end­less de­lays, and in­def­i­nite de­ten­tion are clear signs of in­sti­tu­tion­al fail­ure. Gor­don be­lieves that if left un­ad­dressed, they will on­ly deep­en the vi­o­lence and chaos that plague our pris­ons and our so­ci­ety.

A What­sApp mes­sage was sent to Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der yes­ter­day, on the con­cerns raised by Gor­don, but he did not re­spond.