Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty of the To­ba­go Con­vict Prison re­mains a cause of con­cern, says Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Elvin Scant­er­bury.

Scant­er­bury made the com­ment fol­low­ing a vis­it to the Scar­bor­ough fa­cil­i­ty on Thurs­day. He was ac­com­pa­nied by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Christo­pher Vi­dale.

The prison has been plagued by coastal ero­sion, with for­mer se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Stu­art Young promis­ing a new fa­cil­i­ty in 2019.

A cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty was opened at Glen Road, Scar­bor­ough, in 2020, but was even­tu­al­ly shut down amid vo­cif­er­ous com­plaints from res­i­dents near­by.

Scant­er­bury said dis­cus­sions are sched­uled with the au­thor­i­ties on the way for­ward.

“That is still a con­cern for us, but we con­tin­ue to com­mu­ni­cate with our part­ners. I know we are sup­posed to be hav­ing a meet­ing with Chief Sec­re­tary some­time soon. We have a re­port we are putting to­geth­er for him. The dis­cus­sions are still alive about what is the fu­ture for To­ba­go pris­ons.”

Scant­er­bury said he was very im­pressed by his of­fi­cers who con­tin­ue to do an ex­cel­lent job de­spite cer­tain con­straints.

Asked whether the con­di­tions are bet­ter com­pared to Trinidad, Scant­er­bury said, “I am very pleased with what is be­ing done with the lim­it­ed re­sources we have at the fa­cil­i­ty. The gen­er­al clean­ing, con­di­tion of the wash­rooms. There is al­ways room for im­prove­ment, but I was pleased with what I saw with the meals and all that.”

He as­sured his of­fi­cers that re­in­force­ments are on the way fol­low­ing the re­tire­ment of four se­nior prison of­fi­cials this year.

“We have some re­cruits train­ing, and we would see an in­crease of of­fi­cers com­ing to To­ba­go. For now, we are okay.”

He said a fe­male of­fi­cer is ex­pect­ed to be as­signed to the prison to man­age fe­male vis­i­tors to the prison.

When asked what some of the main griev­ances raised by pris­on­ers are, Scant­er­bury said the fa­cil­i­ty needs a des­ig­nat­ed wel­fare of­fi­cer.

“We don’t have an of­fi­cer per­ma­nent­ly as­signed to the prison. We have an of­fi­cer that vis­its, and we do some vir­tu­al in­ter­ac­tion. The wel­fare de­part­ment is re­spon­si­ble for pri­mar­i­ly con­tact­ing and keep­ing in­mates in con­tact with their rel­a­tives. If there is a death in the fam­i­ly; if the per­son is not get­ting vis­its; if the per­son needs to get some­thing out; take care of so­cial wel­fare for their chil­dren while in­car­cer­at­ed.”

With the re­sump­tion of in-per­son court hear­ings, Scant­er­bury and his team al­so held a meet­ing with Snr Supt Rod­hil Kirk, the Scar­bor­ough Mag­is­trates Court and the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency.

“The Pris­ons Ser­vice re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing with the dif­fer­ent arms of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem to see cit­i­zens do bet­ter and trans­form their lives.”

Union: Lim­it­ed prison space af­fect­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion

Pris­ons As­so­ci­a­tion head Ger­ard Gor­don, how­ev­er, is not pleased with the pace of au­thor­i­ties, as he deemed the fa­cil­i­ty out­dat­ed and un­safe.

“That To­ba­go fa­cil­i­ty was nev­er in­tend­ed to have the prison there. It start­ed as the cells for the Scar­bor­ough Po­lice Sta­tion.

“I of­ten say that fa­cil­i­ty is falling in­to the sea. At any point in time, a time I hope nev­er comes, that we have some sort of earth­quake or some­thing, we could see a large por­tion of that space in the ocean,” Gor­don said.

Be­yond the safe­ty con­cerns, Gor­don be­lieves the in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sue is af­fect­ing the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of pris­on­ers.

Ow­ing to the space con­straints, he not­ed many To­ba­go in­mates are de­tained in fa­cil­i­ties in Trinidad. He said this leaves their rel­a­tives at a sig­nif­i­cant dis­ad­van­tage and caus­es fa­mil­ial ties to be sev­ered.

“We do have a large num­ber of To­bag­o­ni­ans in the fa­cil­i­ties in Trinidad. I don’t have to ex­plain the lo­gis­tics. Where­as some­one in Trinidad don’t have to take a day off and get their vis­it, that is not the case of fam­i­lies of in­car­cer­at­ed To­bag­o­ni­ans.”

Gor­don ar­gued that main­tain­ing fa­mil­ial con­nec­tions is cru­cial for when in­mates are even­tu­al­ly re­leased.

Last year, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der an­nounced the de­com­mis­sion­ing of the Port-of-Spain prison due to its “sub-hu­man and de­grad­ing” con­di­tions.

As part of its re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion agen­da, the Gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to build a prison cam­pus in Tamana.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to Alexan­der about the fu­ture of the To­ba­go prison, but he did not re­spond up to press time.

Mean­while, Scant­er­bury al­so con­firmed that a chick­en pox out­break at the fa­cil­i­ty ear­li­er this year is now un­der con­trol, with no in­mates in­fect­ed.

He added that many of the pro­grammes that had been paused will re­sume, in­clud­ing the rear­ing of chick­ens and rab­bits.