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Saturday, March 15, 2025

Golden Grove Prisoners on Hunger strike

Protesting deplorable conditions

by

Radhica De Silva
1988 days ago
20191005
Prisons Commissioner Gerard Wilson

Prisons Commissioner Gerard Wilson

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

Pris­on­ers at Di­vi­sion B on the West Wing of the Gold­en Grove Prison are pass­ing out from hunger af­ter pris­on­ers em­barked on a hunger strike to protest de­plorable con­di­tions.

The protest came weeks af­ter T&T's pe­nal sys­tem came un­der heavy crit­i­cism from the  In­ter-Amer­i­can Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion (IAHCR) at the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) head­quar­ters in Wash­ing­ton DC.

A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said the strike be­gan last Mon­day and quick­ly es­ca­lat­ed.

"Pris­on­ers are fed up of the long wait in get­ting their mat­ters heard. Some of them are be­ing de­nied sun­light and the food that is be­ing giv­en to them is worse than dog food," the source added.

Asked to ex­plain fur­ther, the source said, "The fish they feed us has scales and guts. The food not fit for hu­man con­sump­tion. No salt or taste and some­times it is spoilt. The hunger strike is for a bet­ter ju­di­cial sys­tem. Not every­one here is guilty but they are mak­ing crim­i­nals out of in­no­cent peo­ple in this en­vi­ron­ment."

Some in­mates buy salt­ed cheese snacks and mix it in­to their food to get a bet­ter taste.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies pro­fes­sor Rose­marie Belle-An­toine who de­liv­ered a pre­sen­ta­tion be­fore the IAHCR said the pris­on­ers had reached a point of frus­tra­tion.

"I have not heard about the hunger strike but I have been con­tact­ed by a few fe­male pris­on­ers who are in great dis­tress. The pris­on­ers are fac­ing dire con­di­tions and I re­gard the re­mand pris­on­ers as the in­vis­i­ble peo­ple be­cause we know they are there but no­body thinks of what they en­dure on a dai­ly ba­sis," she said.

She not­ed that there were over 2,271 pris­on­ers on re­mand in T&T and out of this 34 per cent, one-third were in­car­cer­at­ed for more than five years.

"12.5 per cent have been on re­mand await­ing tri­al for more than ten. There is a per­son in jail in T&T await­ing tri­al for the past 21 years," she re­vealed.

Belle-An­toine said Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Ger­ard Wil­son has been work­ing to im­prove con­di­tions. She said Wil­son was very con­cerned and had not­ed that in some ways peo­ple on re­mand had worse con­di­tions than the ones in­car­cer­at­ed.

"We are ask­ing for the State to take the lead by solv­ing this mul­ti-faceted prob­lem which in­cludes de­nial of bail for cer­tain in­stances, slow tri­al and an un­der-re­sourced DPP's of­fice as well as law re­form," she said.

Prison Com­mis­sion­er re­sponds

Wil­son, in a tele­phone in­ter­view, said he had a du­ty of care for prison of­fi­cers as well as in­mates.

 He said he heard of the hunger strike on Tues­day and spent half of the day speak­ing with the strik­ers hop­ing to get them to de­sist from em­bark­ing on fur­ther ac­tion.

Wil­son said a record was kept of each pris­on­er who de­clined their di­et. He de­nied that the food at the fa­cil­i­ty was of­ten spoiled and un­fit for con­sump­tion adding that fresh food is cooked dai­ly.

"We try our best to give them a bal­anced di­et and while con­di­tions here are not ide­al, it is true that the food is not flavour­ful be­cause we are cook­ing in bulk for over 1,000 pris­on­ers," he added. Wil­son said there was on­ly a min­i­mum of pro­grammes avail­able to in­mates on re­mand and this is be­cause you can­not cater a pro­gramme for an in­mate who can get bail and go home.

"Re­mand in Gold­en Grove was nev­er struc­tured for pro­grammes but there is a Voc-tech build­ing that we ser­vice in or­der to get some of the re­mand­ed in­mates to do pro­grammes," he said.

He added that a new plan is be­ing drawn up propos­ing that pro­grammes could be in­tro­duced to peo­ple on re­mand and tied in with their sen­tence.

"This will en­cour­age a lot of the re­mand­ed in­mates for drug re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and as­sist them in be­com­ing bet­ter peo­ple. Pro­grammes are not com­pul­so­ry, it is op­tion­al," he said.

 Wil­son said he in­tend­ed to lob­by for the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of all the re­mand­ed in­mates by writ­ing to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty so that the peo­ple on re­mand could have an im­proved life.


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