Vir­tu­al vis­its and elec­tron­ic mail to in­mates be­came op­er­a­tional on Mon­day.

Fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful tri­al-run of the on­line-vis­it pi­lot project at the Port-of-Spain Prison last Wednes­day, the T&T Prison Ser­vice in­formed that a pol­i­cy was de­vel­oped and has been adopt­ed re­gard­ing vir­tu­al vis­its and elec­tron­ic mail, in ac­cor­dance with prison rules and reg­u­la­tions.

This pol­i­cy pro­vides for the gen­er­al guide­lines to be ad­hered to, the cen­sor­ing and mon­i­tor­ing of vir­tu­al vis­its and elec­tron­ic mail, vis­it hours and du­ra­tion, vis­i­tor ap­proval, the ex­pec­ta­tion of vis­i­tors, vis­i­tor con­duct and ter­mi­na­tion of vis­its.

In light of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic cur­rent­ly be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced, Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons (Ag), Den­nis Pul­chan not­ed that the ini­tia­tive is an im­por­tant “ad­di­tion­al mea­sure de­signed to keep the lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion open be­tween in­mates and their loved ones dur­ing this time and es­sen­tial­ly, go­ing for­ward.”

All vis­its at all of the na­tion’s pris­ons have been sus­pend­ed, un­til fur­ther no­tice. This took ef­fect as of Tues­day 31 March.

The vir­tu­al vis­it pro­gramme has been im­ple­ment­ed at the Gold­en Grove Prison, Re­mand Prison, Women’s Prison and the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic are ad­vised that the ser­vice would be fa­cil­i­tat­ed through the Pris­ons Wel­fare De­part­ment where in­mates can sub­mit a re­quest for the vis­it through the Wel­fare De­part­ment and a fam­i­ly mem­ber would be con­tact­ed in or­der to sched­ule a vis­it.

Vis­its will be ac­com­mo­dat­ed once every two weeks for each of­fend­er re­quest­ing to do so, for up to ten min­utes.

Ac­cord­ing to the prison ser­vice, it has recog­nised that the fa­cil­i­ty of vis­i­ta­tion “is an im­por­tant tool utilised to strength­en in­mates’ so­cial and fa­mil­ial ties and will pro­mote any and such fea­si­ble mea­sures while main­tain­ing safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty with­in the na­tion’s pris­ons.