Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

More than $5.2 bil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s prison sys­tem be­tween 2016 and 2023, ac­cord­ing to Guardian Me­dia In­ves­tiga­tive Desk’s cal­cu­la­tions.

The high­est an­nu­al al­lo­ca­tion came in 2019, at $750.2 mil­lion, while the low­est was in 2020, around $517 mil­lion. Guardian Me­dia sought da­ta dat­ing as far back as 2011, but ac­tu­al ex­pen­di­ture fig­ures for 2014 and 2015 were not avail­able.

De­spite the multi­bil­lion-dol­lar spend­ing, se­ri­ous prob­lems con­tin­ue across a prison sys­tem that em­ploys over 2,500 of­fi­cers and civil­ian con­trac­tors at sev­en main fa­cil­i­ties. In a 2023 re­port, the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of State’s Bu­reau of Democ­ra­cy, Hu­man Rights, and La­bor de­scribed prison con­di­tions in T&T as phys­i­cal­ly abu­sive and harsh due to over­crowd­ing and in­ad­e­quate san­i­ta­tion. 

“The law pro­hib­it­ed such prac­tices, but there were re­ports that po­lice and prison guards some­times used ex­ces­sive force against de­tainees and pris­on­ers. De­spite gov­ern­ment steps to pun­ish se­cu­ri­ty force mem­bers and oth­er of­fi­cials charged with un­law­ful killings or oth­er abus­es, open-end­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions and the gen­er­al­ly slow pace of crim­i­nal ju­di­cial pro­ceed­ings cre­at­ed a cli­mate of im­puni­ty,” it stat­ed.

Death be­hind bars,

of­fi­cers un­der at­tack

Since 2020, at least three pris­on­ers were killed while in cus­tody: Em­manuel Joseph in 2023, Sher­lon “Big Mesh” Brown in 2024, and in March this year, Aki­no Pur­cell, who was al­leged­ly beat­en by of­fi­cers at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison. Prison Ser­vice con­firmed in a me­dia re­lease that Pur­cell at­tacked of­fi­cers, who re­spond­ed with “law­ful force”. He col­lapsed in the in­fir­mary and died the next day.

Prison of­fi­cers have al­so faced fa­tal vi­o­lence. Be­tween 2016 and 2024, at least 13 prison of­fi­cers were mur­dered: Rishi Sanker, Fitzal­bert Vic­tor, Glen­ford Gard­ner, Richard Sandy, Dar­ren Fran­cis, Reynold Par­ris, Wayne Jack­son, De­ven­dra Boodooram, Stephon Richard­son, Sher­win Fran­cis, Nigel Jones, Trevor Ser­rette, and Kendell Smith.

Most re­cent­ly, in June, Of­fi­cer Govin­dra Bal­go­b­in was shot in Arou­ca but sur­vived. 

Ac­cord­ing to the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Lester Lo­gie, the at­tack came fol­low­ing the seizure of 31 cell­phones dur­ing a search.

Prison of­fi­cers have al­so found them­selves on the wrong side of the law. Since 2018, at least 11 of­fi­cers have been charged with crim­i­nal of­fences, in­clud­ing mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and con­tra­band traf­fick­ing. In 2021 alone, four of­fi­cers—Mark Ma­haraj, Stariel Charles, Ken­neth For­ge­nie and John Fe­li­cian—were charged in three sep­a­rate in­ci­dents.

Ear­li­er this year, an­oth­er three of­fi­cers were charged for drug and/or con­tra­band traf­fick­ing: Sher­win Reid, Jirome Wal­ters, and an un­named of­fi­cer. But per­haps the event that best sum­maris­es the volatile na­ture of T&T’s pris­ons is the Ju­ly 2015 prison break in Port-of-Spain, which re­sult­ed in the death of po­lice of­fi­cer Sher­man May­nard, as well as two of the three es­capees.

Mar­tin, Atwell, and Christo­pher “Mon­ster” Sel­by broke out of prison us­ing guns. Sel­by, the lone sur­vivor, sur­ren­dered to po­lice and was charged with es­cap­ing law­ful cus­tody and mur­der. The trau­ma of that day still lingers in the coun­try’s psy­che.

As­so­ci­at­ed is­sues and long-stand­ing prob­lems have been flagged in mul­ti­ple re­ports dat­ing back to 2012, but most rec­om­men­da­tions were ei­ther ig­nored or on­ly par­tial­ly im­ple­ment­ed—with lit­tle ef­fect—leav­ing the sys­tem in a state of on­go­ing cri­sis.

That fail­ure has now con­tributed to yet an­oth­er na­tion­al State of Emer­gency, this time trig­gered by crim­i­nal net­works with con­firmed links to in­mates co­or­di­nat­ing op­er­a­tions from in­side prison walls.

An­nu­al Prison Al­lo­ca­tions (2016–2023)

2023 - $711.8 mil­lion

2022 - $691.5 mil­lion

2021 - $686.9 mil­lion

2020 - $517 mil­lion

2019 - $750.2 mil­lion

2018 - $625.6 mil­lion

2017 - $609 mil­lion

2016 - $726.2 mil­lion

Ig­nored re­ports,

un­heed­ed warn­ings

For­mer in­spec­tor of pris­ons Daniel Khan’s 2012 re­port was the first of­fi­cial as­sess­ment of prison con­di­tions in more than 30 years.

Ac­cord­ing to his find­ings, the ex­ist­ing sys­tem failed to meet even the 1943 Prison Rules that guid­ed the op­er­a­tion of lo­cal pris­ons.

“What is per­haps most star­tling are the sta­tis­tics that re­veal the ob­vi­ous over­crowd­ing. At the Port-of-Spain Prison, Car­rera Prison and Re­mand Prison (Gold­en Grove), the num­ber of in­mates is more than dou­ble the in­sti­tu­tions’ ca­pac­i­ty. On the oth­er hand, sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed in the overview of the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison show that this prison is se­vere­ly un­der­utilised, with on­ly 25 per cent of the prison cells be­ing used.

“How­ev­er, it is hoped that the forty-eight (48) rec­om­men­da­tions that are made in this In­spec­tor of Pris­ons Re­port 2012 will be im­ple­ment­ed to im­prove the na­tion’s pris­ons and prison sys­tem. Such rec­om­men­da­tions in­clude the shut­down of the Port-of-Spain Prison,” he wrote.

The Port-of-Spain Prison re­mains open.

Key rec­om­men­da­tions

not im­ple­ment­ed

Among the key rec­om­men­da­tions that were not im­ple­ment­ed:

• One pris­on­er per cell

• Pro­vi­sion of a bed, mat­tress and clean linens

• Reg­u­lar wash­ing of linens and sun­ning of mat­tress­es

• A sink, toi­let and run­ning wa­ter in each cell

• Ad­e­quate nat­ur­al light­ing and ven­ti­la­tion

• The re­port al­so rec­om­mend­ed the con­struc­tion of new pris­ons, which was not im­ple­ment­ed.

• Some pro­pos­als, such as the in­tro­duc­tion of a cen­tralised in­ci­dent re­port­ing sys­tem, a “Use of Force” form, and of­fi­cer train­ing, were par­tial­ly im­ple­ment­ed.

Spe­cial Pris­ons Com­mit­tee Re­port (2013)

A year af­ter Khan’s re­port, in 2013, a Spe­cial Pris­ons Com­mit­tee was ap­point­ed by the Gov­ern­ment af­ter the mur­der of a prison of­fi­cer led to a work-to-rule protest. It was chaired by Prof Ramesh De­osaran, with cur­rent Min­is­ter of Jus­tice, at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge serv­ing as a mem­ber. The com­mit­tee stat­ed that con­di­tions at Re­mand Prison and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions were volatile and, if ig­nored, could have dis­as­trous con­se­quences for the coun­try, the Gov­ern­ment, of­fi­cers, and pris­on­ers alike. Two years lat­er, the Ju­ly 2015 prison break un­fold­ed. Chaos con­sumed Port-of-Spain as three armed men broke out of the prison.

Here are the rec­om­men­da­tions:

• New Re­mand Fa­cil­i­ty: Not im­ple­ment­ed

Gov­ern­ment was ad­vised to ur­gent­ly re­lo­cate Re­mand Prison to a safer, more san­i­tary fa­cil­i­ty that is nei­ther un­du­ly crowd­ed nor like­ly to cause in­jury or un­due suf­fer­ing to in­mates.

• Pris­on­er Con­di­tions: Not im­ple­ment­ed

Of­fi­cers were to be trained in use of force and a clear pol­i­cy in­tro­duced to pre­vent un­due in­jury.

• Court De­lays for Re­mand­ed In­mates: Not im­ple­ment­ed

Re­mand­ed in­mates were fac­ing lengthy de­lays in the hear­ing of their cas­es. The com­mit­tee called for ur­gent mea­sures from the Chief Jus­tice to re­duce back­log.

• A Prison In­tel­li­gence Unit: Not im­ple­ment­ed

The com­mit­tee rec­om­mend­ed that such a unit should be quick­ly es­tab­lished to help tack­le in­ter­nal cor­rup­tion and pre­vent traf­fick­ing of il­le­gal and pro­hib­it­ed items, as well as oth­er cor­rupt ac­tiv­i­ties with­in the Re­mand Prison and the prison sys­tem as a whole.

• Safe­ty of Prison Of­fi­cers: Par­tial­ly im­ple­ment­ed

The then act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams and then pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Mar­tin Mar­tinez agreed to pri­ori­tise of­fi­cers’ ap­pli­ca­tions for users’ li­cences. Cab­i­net al­so ap­proved bul­let- and stab-proof vests.

• Prison Se­cu­ri­ty: Is­sues Re­main

The com­mit­tee called for cell­phone jam­mers, grab­bers, full-body scan­ners, and tighter checks for drugs, weapons, and pro­hib­it­ed items. Im­proved and more rig­or­ous checks must al­so be adopt­ed to pre­vent the il­le­gal traf­fick­ing of drugs, weapons, cel­lu­lar phones and oth­er pro­hib­it­ed items and sub­stances.

Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee Hear­ings (2016)

In 2016, the then prison in­spec­tor Khan ap­peared be­fore the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Fi­nance and Le­gal Af­fairs, warn­ing that con­di­tions were wors­en­ing.

“When prison hits rock bot­tom, we start dig­ging to get much low­er, and it be­comes a bot­tom­less pit. The prison pop­u­la­tion is a sub­set of the larg­er so­ci­ety. For­give me for say­ing the larg­er so­ci­ety seems to be al­so dig­ging a pit, and the dregs of the pit are be­ing thrown in our pit, and our pit just keeps—I was re­fer­ring to noth­ing has been done or can be done on the prison side to al­le­vi­ate de­lays,” he said.

He lament­ed the lack of fol­low-through on pre­vi­ous rec­om­men­da­tions.

“Rec­om­men­da­tions of spe­cialised courts, more judges, more ju­di­cial fa­cil­i­ties, but the tenac­i­ty and the col­lab­o­ra­tion ef­fort to have the com­mit­tees—not re­fer­ring to this com­mit­tee of course—to in­ves­ti­gate in­to the crim­i­nal jus­tice flow sys­tem is of­ten more ex­citable to have the com­mit­tees and make re­ports rather than to im­ple­ment them.

“The dri­ve to have the com­mit­tees does not ex­tend as far to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the rec­om­men­da­tions, and we have, and I speak as a crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­ney, slow­ly and sure­ly seen the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem al­most grind to a halt,” he com­plained.

At the time, con­trib­u­tors to the JSC as­sured that “there is a sys­tem in place to jam all il­le­git­i­mate phone calls”.

Yet, last week, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro jus­ti­fied the cur­rent State of Emer­gency by stat­ing that crim­i­nal net­works were co­or­di­nat­ing crimes from with­in prison walls.