A spe­cial unit of po­lice of­fi­cers has been put to­geth­er to “po­lice” the prison sys­tem “round-the-clock.”

How­ev­er, the height­ened se­cu­ri­ty move is al­ready not go­ing down well as it has caused an up­roar among the prison pop­u­la­tion and prison of­fi­cers.

The T&T Guardian was told the im­plant­i­ng of the spe­cial unit took place yes­ter­day in­side the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca. This was one of sev­er­al de­ci­sions tak­en dur­ing a closed-door emer­gency meet­ing with Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young and se­cu­ri­ty heads on Wednes­day, fol­low­ing the mur­der of act­ing Su­per­in­ten­dent of Pris­ons Wayne Jack­son.

Jack­son, 50, who had 30 years ser­vice, took up his act­ing po­si­tion at MSP in Feb­ru­ary this year. He was not well liked among the in­mates and some prison of­fi­cers. The T&T Guardian was told in re­cent times un­der his watch, there were many ar­rests of prison of­fi­cers for smug­gling in con­tra­band, in­clud­ing cell­phones, mar­i­jua­na, cig­a­rettes, to in­mates.

On Tues­day at about 6.30 pm, Jack­son had just pulled in­to the dri­ve­way at his home in Mal­abar home when he was am­bushed by two gun­men. Po­lice re­cov­ered over 30 spent shells on the scene.

Jack­son’s mur­der “rocked” the T&T Pris­ons Ser­vice and many of­fi­cers have since then opt­ed to stay away from du­ties at all the na­tion’s pris­ons, in­clud­ing Re­mand Yard, Gold­en Grove and MSP, a pris­ons source who wished strict anonymi­ty con­firmed yes­ter­day.

As a re­sult of the prison of­fi­cers’ ac­tion for the past two days at the Re­mand Yard in Gold­en Grove, in­mates from the Up­per and Low­er North, South and Top Se­cu­ri­ty blocks were not giv­en their air­ing times. In­mates were al­so not al­lowed vis­its from rel­a­tives.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, the wife of an in­mate, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said she went as ear­ly as 5 am yes­ter­day to see her hus­band but was told all vis­its were be­ing put on hold.

“I was told that the prison on lock­down and that of­fi­cers were on ‘go slow’ be­cause of the mur­der of the se­nior of­fi­cer, but what I couldn’t un­der­stand was why these in­mates here had to suf­fer when the se­nior was head­ing MSP.”

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice con­firmed that Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith and a spe­cialised unit of of­fi­cers “con­duct­ed a walk-through” at MSP yes­ter­day morn­ing. The re­lease said the ex­er­cise was con­duct­ed in a bid to as­cer­tain ar­eas where po­lice of­fi­cers will be de­ployed with­in the MSP.

“This forms part of con­tin­ued joint ef­forts to­ward strength­en­ing all agen­cies in the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sys­tem, which in­cludes a com­pre­hen­sive se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem in the pris­ons,” the re­lease added.

How­ev­er, a source told the T&T Guardian of­fi­cers from the unit will be sta­tioned at MSP on a 24-hour ba­sis “to act as a buffer” and “be the ex­tra eyes on the look­out for il­le­gal items en­ter­ing the prison.”

The source added that MSP hous­es some of the coun­try’s most dan­ger­ous and in­flu­en­tial in­mates, many of them in­car­cer­at­ed for mur­der and kid­nap­pings.

“Over the years, many re­la­tion­ships have been formed and grown be­tween and among in­mates and prison of­fi­cers…many of the of­fi­cers are be­lieved to be rogue and en­gage them­selves in the aid­ing and abet­ting of il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties in and out­side the prison walls,” the source said.

How­ev­er, a prison of­fi­cer, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said he was not hap­py with the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the unit.

“I think we, the prison of­fi­cers, have manned the pris­ons well over the years and we can do our jobs with­out the po­lice. Po­lice of­fi­cers have their place and it is not in­side the prison. We have our re­served rea­sons. Maybe be­cause of the cir­cum­stances se­cu­ri­ty is be­ing beefed up, but we in the Prison Ser­vice have our own ways of beef­ing up se­cu­ri­ty in­side these walls.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment last evening, Grif­fith said his move was on the re­quest of the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Dane Clarke. He added that the pres­ence of of­fi­cers at the prison will on­ly be “added se­cu­ri­ty and to en­sure a se­cure and safe en­vi­ron­ment.”