Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe has de­clared the or­gan­i­sa­tion “open for busi­ness.”

He wants greater col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the na­tion’s pris­ons and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to help fix the crime scourge which con­tin­ues to plague T&T. For this year, there have been brazen rob­beries at busi­ness­places, dis­turb­ing home in­va­sions and mur­ders among oth­er crim­i­nal acts be­ing per­pet­u­at­ed al­most dai­ly.

Speak­ing at Am­cham’s an­nu­al Health, Safe­ty, Se­cu­ri­ty and En­vi­ron­ment (HSSE) Con­fer­ence at the Hy­att Re­gency on Tues­day, Cor­raspe said to achieve the de­sired ef­forts and out­comes, be­gins with con­sul­ta­tions that can en­hance the func­tions of the ser­vice to achieve greater ef­fi­cien­cy. This can take var­i­ous forms in­clud­ing train­ing, which can ul­ti­mate­ly re­sult in in­creased re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and suc­cess­ful rein­te­gra­tion of pris­on­ers and peo­ple on re­mand, which would all re­sult in en­hanced pub­lic safe­ty.

To ef­fec­tive­ly tack­le the crime prob­lem, Cor­raspe said the Pris­ons Ser­vice can­not do it alone as he em­pha­sised that it “takes a com­mu­ni­ty to re­ha­bil­i­tate an of­fend­er.”

He sug­gest­ed there must be a “more macro lev­el” ap­proach in­stead of a “mi­cro per­spec­tive” to the prob­lem as the bur­den must be shared.

“There is a nexus be­tween the Pris­ons Ser­vice and busi­ness­es that per­haps we do not see in the tra­di­tion­al sense. When I think of a busi­nessper­son, I see some­one who is look­ing at the mar­ket and see­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ties that the mar­ket will present for prof­it and prof­itabil­i­ty. But at the heart of it, it speaks to the abil­i­ty to man­age eco­nom­ic risks...From the prison point of view, we are risk man­agers as well. We are man­ag­ing crim­ino­genic risks,” Cor­raspe ex­plained.

He said re­duc­ing the fac­tors which cause a per­son to com­mit crime in the first place can re­sult in re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and even of­fer sup­port af­ter this process for suc­cess­ful rein­te­gra­tion back in­to so­ci­ety.

“For every sin­gle of­fend­er that we are able to re­ha­bil­i­tate, that is one per­son less that you have to con­cern your­self with as a busi­ness own­er in the con­text of crime,” Cor­raspe told the au­di­ence who he de­scribed as “the cap­i­tal­ist class.”

He main­tained that busi­ness­es ought to go be­yond the func­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion that has ex­ist­ed with the Pris­ons Ser­vice in the past such as the pro­cure­ment of goods.

In pro­vid­ing an ex­am­ple of how the busi­ness sec­tor can share its ex­per­tise with the pris­ons, Cor­raspe said re­cent­ly an en­ti­ty re­quest­ed the ser­vices of the Pris­ons’ Band to play at one of its func­tions.

This was grant­ed un­der the con­di­tion that the en­ti­ty al­lowed two of its hu­man re­source rep­re­sen­ta­tives to work with pris­ons of­fi­cials in for­mu­lat­ing a com­men­da­tion pol­i­cy, a crit­i­cal part of im­prov­ing the pro­mo­tion struc­ture with­in the Pris­ons Ser­vice.

“There are many func­tion­al ways that we can en­gage in the deep­er col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and the prison, and it is nec­es­sary at this time.

“And to the ex­tent that the of­fend­er is re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed, it will mean im­proved and en­hanced pub­lic safe­ty for us all, whether we be busi­ness­men, whether we be em­ploy­ees, or whether we be func­tionar­ies with­in the state agen­cies that have that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” he ex­plained.

He not­ed that cur­rent­ly, the av­er­age dai­ly pop­u­la­tion of in­mates is just un­der 3,100 and of that fig­ure 2,200 are on re­mand (those whose mat­ters are be­fore the court) while “just un­der” 900 are con­vict­ed pris­on­ers who are serv­ing time.

Cor­raspe said what was “more con­cern­ing” was that for 2024, 3,900 peo­ple have “passed through the prison sys­tem.”

“Which is to say there were is­sues re­lat­ed to crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty and pub­lic safe­ty,” he added.

The Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er fur­ther not­ed that the cost of se­cu­ri­ty is a sig­nif­i­cant one that is ris­ing among busi­ness op­er­a­tors, forc­ing own­ers to put ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mech­a­nisms in place.

“But it is a lit­tle more than that, as em­ploy­ees are afraid to at­tend work as they find them­selves af­fect­ed by crime and it cer­tain­ly will im­pact your abil­i­ty, as busi­ness­men and busi­ness lead­ers and your or­gan­i­sa­tion to dis­pense with your op­er­a­tions and to meet cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion that is re­quired,” Cor­raspe added.

This, he said, has al­so forced some busi­ness­es to re­duce their hours of op­er­a­tion with fast-food restau­rant Pap­py’s an­nounc­ing via so­cial me­dia on Mon­day that due to the in­creas­ing con­cerns about crime in the coun­try, it would close its Wood­brook lo­ca­tion at 8pm on Fri­days and Sat­ur­days while on Tues­day to Thurs­day it will op­er­ate un­til 7 pm, stat­ing that its pri­or­i­ty re­mains its cus­tomers and staff.

Cor­raspe said he hoped calls for such dis­cus­sions and col­lab­o­ra­tion will not fall on deaf ears.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Am­cham T&T said it wel­comed these talks and to as­sist in what­ev­er way it can in paving the way for­ward.

Am­cham T&T’s pres­i­dent Stu­art Fran­co al­so echoed the ur­gent need for col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Gov­ern­ment, law en­force­ment and com­mu­ni­ties to com­bat crime ef­fec­tive­ly, stat­ing this is need­ed for a safer, stronger fu­ture for every­one.

The theme for this year’s con­fer­ence and ex­hi­bi­tion which is in its 28th year, is hu­man fac­tors, which Fran­co said is par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant.

He said the theme fo­cuss­es on the crit­i­cal role that hu­man el­e­ments play in build­ing strong, re­silient safe­ty cul­tures with­in or­gan­i­sa­tions and com­mu­ni­ties.

In to­day’s fast-paced work en­vi­ron­ments, Fran­co said the pres­sure to per­form of­ten over­shad­ows safe­ty con­sid­er­a­tions.

“But it’s vi­tal that we shift our per­spec­tive—from see­ing em­ploy­ees as li­a­bil­i­ties to recog­nis­ing them as as­sets in our safe­ty ef­forts. By pri­ori­tis­ing their phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal well-be­ing, we can cul­ti­vate a cul­ture of safe­ty that not on­ly pre­vents ac­ci­dents but en­hances pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and job sat­is­fac­tion.

“Our goal must al­ways be to cre­ate work­places where em­ploy­ees thrive, not just sur­vive. While this may seem daunt­ing, Am­cham T&T has been stead­fast in in­te­grat­ing Hu­man and Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al Per­for­mance (HOP) in­to our HSSE agen­da,” he added.

As lead­ers, Fran­co added that it is their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to fos­ter an en­vi­ron­ment where open com­mu­ni­ca­tion is en­cour­aged—where team mem­bers feel sup­port­ed and able to look out for one an­oth­er.

“This is how we re­duce ac­ci­dents and cre­ate a cul­ture of care. We must al­so deep­en our un­der­stand­ing of the psy­cho­log­i­cal and so­cial fac­tors in­flu­enc­ing be­hav­iour so that we can de­sign bet­ter in­ter­ven­tions that pro­mote safer prac­tices. This is why HSSE lead­er­ship is so vi­tal,” he added.

To­day, the nar­ra­tive is shift­ing, Fran­co said, as it is no longer just about pun­ish­ment or en­force­ment; it’s about un­der­stand­ing why is­sues arise and learn­ing from those in­volved.