Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

The Prison Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) is warn­ing of “an ex­plo­sive set of cir­cum­stances" at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) where 86 in­mates have test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.

This fol­lows un­rest among some in­mates in the quar­an­tine sec­tion at MSP on Tues­day. Al­though the in­ci­dent was short-lived as a prison of­fi­cer on du­ty quick­ly quelled the sit­u­a­tion, the POA called for "a very fo­cused and ag­gres­sive re­sponse to en­sure the lives of the of­fi­cers and in­mates are pro­tect­ed as much as pos­si­ble.”

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing threats made to two prison of­fi­cers as­signed to the MSP. A prison of­fi­cer made a re­port to the Long­denville Po­lice Post that while he was on ex­er­cise du­ty at the MSP he was told: “Long­denville boss watch your back. We com­ing out just now.”

The prison of­fi­cer said be­cause he is from the Long­denville area he felt threat­ened by the words.

In the oth­er re­port­ed in­ci­dent, a 39-year-old prison of­fi­cer said an in­mate he knows from Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas, who is await­ing tri­al for mur­der, looked at him and said: “All al­lyuh tun key dead, es­pe­cial­ly you 500 boss."

Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Den­nis Pul­chan said of­fi­cers are be­ing threat­ened dai­ly ba­sis but “much is be­ing done” to them.

"Trust me," he said.

In a state­ment, the POA said they “con­tin­ue to ad­vise our mem­bers that self-preser­va­tion is para­mount.”

Videos wide­ly shared on so­cial me­dia show un­san­i­tary con­di­tions in cells where in­mates claimed 12 of them are be­ing housed in one cell putting them at risk of con­tract­ing the coro­n­avirus.

Last week 22 in­mates were swabbed for test­ing and 12 of­fi­cers. To date, 68 pos­i­tive re­sults have been re­ceived by act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Den­nis Pul­chan.

The POA said its mem­bers have been nav­i­gat­ing a very hos­tile en­vi­ron­ment.

"Now we must add the very re­al is­sues sur­round­ing COVID-19 and its as­so­ci­at­ed chal­lenges to our mem­bers. One must note, that notwith­stand­ing the pub­lic gen­er­al un­sym­pa­thet­ic pos­tur­ing in re­la­tion to the con­di­tions un­der which pris­on­ers are held, that most in­mates re­turn to so­ci­ety. The prison en­vi­ron­ment has been de­scribed by some as “sta­tion­ary cruise ships” where cruise ships have been proven to be some of the most high­ly con­ta­gious en­vi­ron­ments for the spread of the virus."

The POA said t it has al­ready “seen some up­heavals and ex­pect more such in­ci­dents be­cause the man­age­ment or lack there­of con­tin­ues to place both of­fi­cers and in­mates in ex­treme dan­ger,"

Pro­vi­sion of PPE equip­ment is ei­ther in­suf­fi­cient or ab­sent the As­so­ci­a­tion said, adding: “This is on the back­drop of con­tin­ued cuts to the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions to the Prison Di­vi­sion. The As­so­ci­a­tion is of the view, that the need for PPE in the prison is on the same lev­el as that of a med­ical in­sti­tu­tion hous­ing Covid-19 pos­i­tive pa­tients. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a prop­er op­er­a­tional au­dit should be done, to en­sure those rolled back ac­tiv­i­ties are con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tored and as­sessed to en­sure cross-con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and in­fec­tion be re­duced to a min­i­mum, if at all."

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing di­rect threats made on two prison of­fi­cers, who are cur­rent­ly as­signed to the MSP.