Wanted: 500 more prison officers.
Despite difficulties concerning recruitment, the Prison Service will soon be embarking on a recruitment drive for this number, National Security Minister Stuart Young confirmed yesterday.
He did so responding to Opposition questions during the second day of scrutiny of the 2019 budget by Parliament’s Standing Finance Committee.
Young said Government was well aware of the difficulties encountered by the Prison Service recently.
“And we’re going on a recruitment drive this (fiscal) year in the hope of attracting more officers to the service. We’ve found varying difficulties throughout national security in terms of recruitment over recent time and years, not only limited to the Prison Service,” he said.
The minister said bureaucracy in the recruitment process is the first issue, “The second is — and it’s no secret—there’s a level of danger associated with carrying out your duties as a prison officer. That’s just it. You have to have a cadre of people who are willing to enter the service knowing that within recent times— for quite a while now — there’s a danger associated with carrying out the duties of a prison officer. So by definition, the number of people willing to be recruited will be limited.”
He said the Prison Service’s full complement is supposed to be 4,211 but there’s only 2,910 currently— over 1,300 vacant posts—hence the need to try and recruit 500 more.
Vacancies exist throughout the service from upper echelons to lower ranks. The vacancies have caused large overtime levels. There’s a $2 million increase for overtime in the 2019 budget for the service and an increase of $28 million for prison service salaries.
While 290 officers were recruited in fiscal 2018, vacancies would also have been caused by attrition, Young added.
Young said the strategy for recruitment remains basically the same including use of social media for ads. Vetting includes polygraph tests for prison officers and law enforcement officers also.
On a “fear factor” affecting numbers available and the possibility they may “fall in” with negative prison culture, Young said the vetting process attempts to identify the potential for this among recruits.
On other issues, he said there’s no crisis with refugees but there’s an increase in people seeking refugees status which is being addressed and there’s also an increased influx of non-T&T citizens,“We’re discussing it, I wouldn’t say Immigration isn’t capable of handling the task.”
Young said Government didn’t have “our heads buried in the sand” on the Venezuelan aspect, “We’re looking at it very closely and talking with Venezuelan authorities.”
He said a number of Venezuelans have been picked up for overstaying the 90-day limit for a T&T visit.
“There are people who’ve slipped through the cracks, it’s a live issue and we’re dealing with it. There are also some entering illegally via unauthorised ports of entry. We intend to allocate more resources in Cedros as it’s a very live port of entry,” the minister said.
He confirmed a number of CCTV cameras aren’t functioning and the National Security Council is seeking to improve this.
The ministry is in a dispute with TSTT on a large sum—for which there’s a $235 million allocation in the budget—which TSTT is claiming for cameras.
Young also promised to look into Opposition concerns about the high speed of vans transporting prisoners.
