Senior Reporter
rhondor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt
The Prison Officers Association (POA) wants the Port-of-Spain Prison to be relocated.
“This arrangement in the capital city of Trinidad and Tobago needs to stop immediately. It is not safe for the public. It is certainly not safe for the officers who continue to work and engage in this environment,” said POA president Gerard Gordon
At a media briefing outside the prison yesterday morning, Gordon said the 200-year-old facility had outlived its usefulness and faces many issues, including open fences.
He recalled the deadly prison break in 2015 as well as the recent riot which left several prison officers injured and urged Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds to deal with the matter urgently.
“Mr Fitzgerald Hinds, you promised that you would have come since last year when we would have met to look at the conditions which prison officers are operating under and working and here we are in 2024 and we realise that you have not come as yet,” he said.
Gordon suggested that lands near the Maximum Security Prison in Arouca could accommodate a “modern-day technologically advanced” facility.
Commenting on the recent riot, Gordon said the prison officers involved had suffered more psychological damage than physical injuries.
He also referred to the July 24, 2015, incident in which murder-accused Allan “Scanny” Martin and two other prisoners shot their way out of the Frederick Street prison and killed a young police officer, PC Sherman Maynard.
Apart from the guns the prisoners were armed with, police found a grenade outside the jail following the escape.
The dramatic escape occurred two days after the then-leader of the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen, Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, was detained for questioning in the Dana Seetahal, SC, murder case and then released.
In the March 26 incident, an inmate, Sherlon Brown, died several days after being injured in the fracas. He was among five inmates and 17 prison officers injured in that mid-morning incident.
Minister Hinds could not be reached yesterday for his response to the concerns raised by the POA.