Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar has called on all prison of­fi­cers to ex­er­cise “cau­tion, due dili­gence and as­tute­ness, es­pe­cial­ly when off du­ty.”

He al­so warned prison of­fi­cers to be mind­ful of in­for­ma­tion placed in the pub­lic do­main via so­cial me­dia.

In an ad­vi­so­ry sent out by the com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment of the Prison Ser­vice yes­ter­day, the act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er cit­ed the prac­tice by some prison of­fi­cers to pub­lish “per­son­al in­for­ma­tion such as lo­ca­tion, abode and rel­a­tives, which can lead to them be­com­ing tar­gets of crim­i­nal el­e­ments.”

Over the years, over 20 prison of­fi­cers have been killed.

Last year, law en­force­ment probed a re­port­ed threat to kill 13 prison of­fi­cers be­fore Christ­mas. The of­fi­cers were all as­signed to the Wayne Jack­son Build­ing at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, al­so known as Build­ing 13.

Two prison of­fi­cers were gunned down last year just days apart.

Prison of­fi­cer Trevor Serette was killed while at his fruit stall in Va­len­cia and prison of­fi­cer Nigel Jones was gunned down in front of his daugh­ter at the Fyz­abad taxi stand in Siparia. The two of­fi­cers worked in build­ing 13.

Yes­ter­day, Ra­moutar chid­ed of­fi­cers, say­ing they do not owe so­cial me­dia any in­for­ma­tion and the prac­tice of post­ing per­son­al in­for­ma­tion on so­cial me­dia “can do more harm than good.”

Ra­moutar re­mind­ed of­fi­cers, “Once re­cruit­ed, a pris­ons of­fi­cer can­not ful­ly func­tion as an av­er­age per­son, as every­thing they do and say will be judged as pris­ons of­fi­cer.”

He added, “Not every­one un­der­stands or ap­pre­ci­ates the virtue of be­ing a pris­ons of­fi­cer and of­fi­cers must strive to meet the stan­dard of the roles they took an oath to ful­fil.”

Aside from killings, the homes of prison of­fi­cers have been shot up and fire­bombed.

These at­tacks have led to the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion call­ing for greater safe­ty and pro­tec­tion of of­fi­cers, which even­tu­al­ly led to some prison of­fi­cers be­ing al­lowed to keep and car­ry guns while off du­ty. How­ev­er, that pol­i­cy was suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged legal­ly by a po­lice con­sta­ble, with a High Court judge rul­ing that the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons does not have the au­thor­i­ty to al­low prison of­fi­cers to “keep and car­ry” guns when they are not on du­ty. The judge added that the prac­tice is “ir­ra­tional, il­le­gal and clear­ly ul­tra vires.”