The US Em­bassy has hand­ed over a do­na­tion of coun­ter­feit cur­ren­cy de­tec­tion ma­chines, ri­ot gear kits, and com­put­er hard­ware to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice to aid its ef­forts to pro­vide a safe, se­cure, and hu­mane cor­rec­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment.

A state­ment by the Em­bassy says it is pleased to play a role in en­hanc­ing the abil­i­ty of the Prison Ser­vice not on­ly to re­spond to emer­gen­cies but al­so to track the crim­i­nal net­works that at­tempt to con­tin­ue their ac­tiv­i­ties from be­hind prison walls.

The han­dover from Am­bas­sador Joseph Mon­del­lo to Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Ger­ard Wil­son took place at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice’s Ad­min­is­tra­tive Of­fices in Port-of-Spain.

The coun­ter­feit cur­ren­cy de­tec­tion ma­chines will be used to check the le­git­i­ma­cy of cur­ren­cy and cheques pre­sent­ed by crim­i­nal de­fen­dants or their rep­re­sen­ta­tives seek­ing bail as part of the Bail Re­form Act of 2017.

The ri­ot gear kits were pro­vid­ed to the Prison Ser­vice Emer­gency Re­sponse Unit, whose of­fi­cers al­so re­cent­ly at­tend­ed a US De­part­ment of State-spon­sored “Mock Prison Ri­ot” train­ing ex­er­cise in West Vir­ginia.

The com­put­er hard­ware will host soft­ware that will al­low the Prison Ser­vice to bet­ter iden­ti­fy and track the crim­i­nal net­works ac­tive in the pris­ons.

The do­na­tion was made through the Caribbean Basin Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive, uti­liz­ing fund­ing from the US De­part­ment of State’s Bu­reau of In­ter­na­tion­al Nar­cotics and Law En­force­ment Af­fairs.

Am­bas­sador Mon­del­lo not­ed that the Unit­ed States was pleased to con­tin­ue its long-stand­ing sup­port to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice as it con­tin­ued to mod­ern­ize its op­er­a­tions to pro­tect so­ci­ety and fa­cil­i­tate the op­por­tu­ni­ties for re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, while main­tain­ing con­trol un­der safe, se­cure and hu­mane con­di­tions.