The Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion is call­ing for an im­me­di­ate au­dit of all prison keys across the coun­try, af­ter a set of keys, which in­cludes the ri­ot gate key (which con­trols the main gate along the cor­ri­dor of the prison used in emer­gen­cies), went miss­ing from the Women’s Prison in Arou­ca.

The as­so­ci­a­tion says the ab­sence of the ri­ot gate key pos­es a se­ri­ous threat to the safe­ty of both of­fi­cers and in­mates.

PoA sec­re­tary Lester Lo­gie has urged act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Car­los Cor­raspe to or­der a com­pre­hen­sive as­sess­ment of the locks and keys at the na­tion’s ma­jor prison fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing the Re­mand Prison at Gold­en Grove, the Port-of-Spain Prison, and the Car­rera Con­vict Prison.

“We are re­quest­ing an im­me­di­ate au­dit through the prison lock­smiths to en­sure all keys are ac­count­ed for and to iden­ti­fy any oth­er po­ten­tial vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. These fa­cil­i­ties al­ready pose sig­nif­i­cant op­er­a­tional chal­lenges, and this in­ci­dent has fur­ther height­ened con­cerns,” Lo­gie told the Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Lo­gie said prison of­fi­cers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those on night­time shifts, are now fear­ful for their safe­ty, as the miss­ing keys leave cells po­ten­tial­ly un­se­cured.

“A miss­ing ri­ot gate key fur­ther ex­ac­er­bates the sit­u­a­tion. It com­pro­mis­es the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of our mem­bers and in­mates at night,” he said.

Lo­gie said he was in­formed about the miss­ing keys by an­oth­er mem­ber of the as­so­ci­a­tion but has not yet re­ceived any de­tails on the progress of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, or whether any­one has been in­ter­viewed.

He stressed that even if the miss­ing keys are re­cov­ered, the locks will still need to be re­placed to pre­vent any po­ten­tial breach­es.

Lo­gie has al­so called for an ur­gent re­view of the key han­dover pro­to­cols and lock­down pro­ce­dures, to tight­en se­cu­ri­ty and pre­vent sim­i­lar oc­cur­rences in the fu­ture.

The as­so­ci­a­tion, he said, planned to sub­mit a for­mal re­quest to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, high­light­ing the risks posed by the miss­ing keys and the need for im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion.

The Prison Ser­vice has con­firmed that a set of keys to the Women’s Prison went miss­ing and said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion had been launched.