by Jensen La Vende

The Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has de­nied re­ports that Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe has been placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave.

In­stead, the As­so­ci­a­tion said he had been sent on va­ca­tion, adding that of­fi­cers are en­cour­aged not to ac­cu­mu­late more than 90 days’ va­ca­tion, in keep­ing with es­tab­lished guide­lines.

In a me­dia re­lease, As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don urged the pub­lic and me­dia to treat mat­ters con­cern­ing the Prison Ser­vice with fair­ness, ac­cu­ra­cy, and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“We strong­ly de­nounce the re­cent so­cial me­dia head­line sug­gest­ing that Mr. Cor­raspe has been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave. This as­ser­tion is both in­ac­cu­rate and un­fair to the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and to Mr. Cor­raspe him­self,” the state­ment read.

Gor­don stressed that the Prison Ser­vice, par­tic­u­lar­ly at this crit­i­cal time, re­quires steady lead­er­ship and fo­cused man­age­ment – qual­i­ties he said are up­held col­lec­tive­ly by the pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ded­i­ca­tion of all prison of­fi­cers.

“The Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion reaf­firms its un­wa­ver­ing sup­port for all our mem­bers who con­tin­ue to serve with dili­gence and loy­al­ty to Trinidad and To­ba­go, re­gard­less of rank or as­sign­ment. We re­main com­mit­ted to work­ing with gov­ern­ment, man­age­ment, and civ­il so­ci­ety to en­sure the con­tin­ued safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, and sta­bil­i­ty of the Prison Ser­vice,” Gor­don added.