Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

For­mer min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Mar­vin Gon­za­les says the dis­cov­ery of a 65-inch tele­vi­sion in a prison cell ex­pos­es se­ri­ous fail­ings by the Gov­ern­ment, which he claims came in­to of­fice un­pre­pared to tack­le crime.

Gon­za­les, who served on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, yes­ter­day said the pub­lic should have re­ceived a full ex­pla­na­tion from cur­rent Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Wayne Sturge, af­ter he made the rev­e­la­tion dur­ing a pre-bud­get meet­ing on Wednes­day.

“Min­is­ter Sturge should have been pro­vid­ing the na­tion with a prop­er ex­pla­na­tion on how a 65-inch tele­vi­sion ar­rived in a prison cell and why all se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures that were put in place to pre­vent this very kind of crim­i­nal­i­ty failed,” Gon­za­les said.

“He should then as­sure the na­tion of what mea­sures will be im­ple­ment­ed to pre­vent this from hap­pen­ing in the fu­ture. He has now fall­en in­to grave er­ror by ap­peal­ing to the pop­u­la­tion to be pa­tient. Clear­ly, the UNC has been caught with its prover­bial pants down when they were elect­ed on April 28, since they re­al­ly nev­er had a plan to treat with all as­pects of crim­i­nal­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Gon­za­les said the Gov­ern­ment is now “scram­bling and ex­posed” and ac­cused them of ask­ing the coun­try to “hold strain” in the face of grow­ing pub­lic alarm.

Asked whether he had ever heard of the tele­vi­sion dur­ing his tenure, Gon­za­les replied, “Nev­er. Noth­ing of this na­ture was ever re­port­ed to me.”

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad de­scribed the claim as as­ton­ish­ing.

“I could see sneak­ing a cell phone in­to the prison. I can’t see sneak­ing in a 65-inch tele­vi­sion. If you could get a 65-inch tele­vi­sion to a pris­on­er, re­al­ly, you could get any­thing to a pris­on­er,” Seep­er­sad said.

He called on new­ly ap­point­ed Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Car­los Cor­raspe to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter.

“The onus is on Mr Cor­raspe to do some in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to that and fig­ure out what’s be­hind that. It prob­a­bly didn’t hap­pen un­der his watch, but he has to fig­ure that one out.”

He said the dis­cov­ery points to deep­er is­sues with­in the sys­tem and warned that pris­on­ers’ abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate with the out­side world has al­lowed them to is­sue threats and or­ches­trate acts of vi­o­lence.

“Part and par­cel of the abil­i­ty of pris­on­ers to even lever­age those threats against of­fi­cers hinges on the fact that the same cor­rupt prac­tices that some of the of­fi­cers en­gage in, for in­stance, giv­ing them cell phones, there­by gives them the pow­er to have that lever­age over the of­fi­cers,” he said.

“If they are able to re­al­ly prop­er­ly iso­late the pris­on­ers in terms of not be­ing able to com­mu­ni­cate with the out­side world, then there’s no way at all that a pris­on­er could, let’s say, call shots on a prison of­fi­cer’s fam­i­ly or on a prison of­fi­cer.”

He added, “The same prac­tices that they are en­gag­ing in, some­times the same cor­rupt prac­tices of bring­ing in cell phones, for in­stance, is the very same thing that is putting them and their fam­i­lies at risk. So, it re­al­ly is a catch-22.”

To re­duce that vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, Seep­er­sad said prison of­fi­cers should be au­to­mat­i­cal­ly grant­ed Firearm User’s Li­cences (FULs), a process he says is cur­rent­ly too dif­fi­cult de­spite the high-risk na­ture of the job. He said the abil­i­ty to legal­ly car­ry a firearm would al­low of­fi­cers to bet­ter pro­tect them­selves and their fam­i­lies, while al­so de­ter­ring at­tempts at co­er­cion.

Seep­er­sad al­so called for the iso­la­tion of high-risk pris­on­ers, the in­stal­la­tion of tam­per­proof mi­cro­phones to mon­i­tor con­ver­sa­tions in­side cells, and the reg­u­lar ro­ta­tion of in­mates be­tween blocks.

He de­scribed the cur­rent state of af­fairs as very dan­ger­ous and said the Gov­ern­ment must act de­ci­sive­ly.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, some peo­ple might say, well, it’s a con­tra­ven­tion of hu­man rights, I don’t know. But if it is that pris­on­ers want to call shots and have peo­ple and their fam­i­lies killed on the out­side, and busi­ness­men, and threat­en­ing politi­cians and ju­di­cial of­fi­cers and stuff, then the State has no op­tion but to take stronger mea­sures.”