As this coun­try’s Re­mand pris­on­ers em­bark on a hunger strike to high­light their wors­en­ing con­di­tions dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights (CCHR) is re­it­er­at­ing its call for gov­ern­ment to work hard­er to mit­i­gate the risk of COVID-19 in the prison sys­tem.

The Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons, Den­nis Pul­chan, has giv­en as­sur­ances that every­thing is be­ing done to pro­tect the well be­ing both pris­on­ers and prison of­fi­cers, alike. A COVID Com­mand Cen­tre has been set-up and is in op­er­a­tion, in or­der to man­age, record, mon­i­tor, eval­u­ate and aid in de­ci­sion mak­ing, for both staff and charges, ac­cord­ing to the Prison Ser­vice.

How­ev­er, the CCHR says it is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about those per­sons iden­ti­fied for re­lease by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in April 2020, who have yet to be processed for re­lease.

It is call­ing on the AG to make good on his promise to min­imise the risk of a coro­n­avirus out­break in the prison sys­tem.

The full text of the CCHR state­ment, fol­lows…

The Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights State­ment:
GOV­ERN­MENT SLOW TO RE­SPOND TO COVID-19 RISKS IN THE PRIS­ONS

The Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights (CCHR) has re­ceived in­for­ma­tion from the of­fice of the Ag. Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er that the per­sons that were iden­ti­fied by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in April for ear­ly re­lease, to min­i­mize the risk of a COVID-19 out­break in pris­ons, have yet to be re­leased.

Ef­forts to re­duce the prison pop­u­la­tion are crit­i­cal to min­i­mize the risks of a COVID-19 out­break to pris­on­ers and the wider pub­lic. These mea­sures are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed glob­al­ly and are based on World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) and Unit­ed Na­tions guide­lines.

Pris­on­ers are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble due to their in­abil­i­ty to so­cial dis­tance and lim­it­ed ac­cess to health care or in­suf­fi­cient health care. Pris­ons are breed­ing grounds for dis­ease due to fac­tors such as over­crowd­ing, poor ven­ti­la­tion, fre­quent trans­fers of pris­on­ers be­tween pris­ons and poor nu­tri­tion. A high­ly in­fec­tious dis­ease like COVID-19 would spread like wild­fire, giv­en the ex­treme­ly un­san­i­tary con­di­tions and the over­crowd­ing that ex­ists in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s prison sys­tem. The state is re­spon­si­ble for the health of per­sons de­prived of their lib­er­ties.

It is im­por­tant to note that pris­ons do not op­er­ate in iso­la­tion. A COVID-19 out­break will ul­ti­mate­ly make its way to the wider pub­lic if mea­sures are not tak­en to man­age the risk and re­duce the prison pop­u­la­tion. Giv­en the fact that one pris­on­er and one prison of­fi­cer have al­ready test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19, CCHR strong­ly urges the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to fol­low through with his com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing the prison pop­u­la­tion and the wider com­mu­ni­ty from the risks of COVID-19.