Camille Clarke

Prison of­fi­cers are an­gry over the host­ing of a show fea­tur­ing mo­tor bike rid­ers and scant­i­ly dressed women at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) last week­end.

The show was ap­par­ent­ly sanc­tioned by Prison Com­mis­sion­er Ster­ling Stew­art, but of­fi­cers yes­ter­day ques­tion­ing the rea­son­ing be­hind it af­ter no ex­tra se­cu­ri­ty was put in place and the event re­gressed in­to a striptease at one point.

Some of­fi­cers, who spoke to the T&T Guardian on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, lay the blame on a se­nior of­fi­cer they ac­cused of or­gan­is­ing the "show" with the help of a "high pro­file in­mate."

The MSP is used to house de­tainees con­vict­ed of mur­der, but prison of­fi­cers said "no ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures were put in place for the show, which was in clear breach of prison pro­to­col." They said at times the show "turned in­to a striptease, as the scant­i­ly clad women took off their tops."

A se­nior of­fi­cer said when ques­tions were raised about how such a show could be al­lowed, they were told it was done "to ease the ten­sion of the in­mates."

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Stew­art con­firmed the event had his bless­ing.

He said the dis­play was one way of be­ing cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive in treat­ing with the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and restora­tion of in­mates. He de­nied claims that a se­nior col­league or­gan­ised the show with the help of an in­mate, call­ing it "mis­chief."

"I know about it. They want us to lock them (in­mates) up in the prison and throw away the key. We are prepar­ing for in­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety and we have to be cre­ative and find in­no­v­a­tive ways to treat with their rein­te­gra­tion in­to the en­vi­ron­ment," he said.

Stew­art said he was al­so an­gry with the neg­a­tiv­i­ty in­stead of high­light­ing the good fea­tures of the event and called on mem­bers of the pub­lic and prison of­fi­cers to take the "log out of their eye." (Quo­ta­tion from the book of Matthew)

He said an of­fer was made by of­fi­cers for a free mo­tor­bike dis­play and the in­mates se­lect­ed were those work­ing with the prison of­fi­cers for a num­ber of years who had no chal­lenges or is­sues.

"We have pro­grammes for the health, the heart and the hands and it was free of charge."

Stew­art said se­nior staff took in­to con­sid­er­a­tion all safe­ty and oth­er as­sess­ments be­fore hold­ing the pro­gramme.

"We not run­ning a slave fac­to­ry as some peo­ple think," he said, adding he will al­ways al­low pro­grammes that could lead in­mates to change their ways and dis­pel the dark­ness.

"There was safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. Pro­to­cols were in place and it was com­plet­ed and they en­joyed it. It was all part of the Christ­mas in build­ing re­la­tion­ships," he said.

He said the prison su­per­vi­sor was al­so sat­is­fied with the dress code of the women.

"He was sat­is­fied with the at­tire and he knows the dress code. Change does cause a lev­el of dis­com­fort and re­sis­tance. I am here to touch and save lives."

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ceron Richards con­firmed he had heard about the event, not­ing he was in Mi­a­mi when an of­fi­cer called him about what was hap­pen­ing. Hav­ing just re­turned to the coun­try, how­ev­er, he said he want­ed to get more in­for­ma­tion about the show.

But Richards said "no show like that could have tak­en place with­out the au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Ster­ling Stew­art and he would need to ex­plain: What was the event about? What was it geared to achieve? And what se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments were put in place?"

Richards said the host­ing of the event "was not dis­cussed with my mem­bers. Of­fi­cers told me they came to work and were shocked to find out what was hap­pen­ing. That is to­tal­ly against the norm."

He said "a lot of of­fi­cers com­plained about it in terms of se­cu­ri­ty breach­es. The Com­mis­sion­er needs to clear the air be­cause I could not have seen some­thing like this hap­pen­ing."

Of­fi­cers gave the name of the se­nior of­fi­cer they claimed or­gan­ised the event, but ef­forts to con­tact him were un­suc­cess­ful. Of­fi­cers said their se­niors told them that "they giv­ing pris­on­ers spe­cial things to en­sure of­fi­cers are not killed."