ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

The de­ten­tion of peo­ple un­der the Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDO), in­clud­ing high-pro­file busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed, has re­opened decades-old claims about poor prison con­di­tions, al­leged weak med­ical sup­port and a sys­tem re­port­ed­ly strug­gling to safe­ly man­age the peo­ple it holds.

While com­plaints about prison con­di­tions have resur­faced be­cause of the Hadeeds’ de­ten­tion, prison sources in­sist Do­minic Hadeed is be­ing housed alone at the Re­mand Prison, Gold­en Grove Prison, where he is sleep­ing well and has ac­cess to med­ical care. He ar­rived at the fa­cil­i­ty last Fri­day.

A prison source told Guardian Me­dia that Hadeed has oc­cu­pied a cell by him­self since ar­riv­ing at the prison on June 26 and has been seen by prison med­ical staff. The source said he can ac­cess the in­fir­mary when­ev­er nec­es­sary.

The source al­so claimed Hadeed is not eat­ing reg­u­lar prison meals and is in­stead buy­ing items from the prison com­mis­sary.

“He is very health-con­scious,” the source claimed.

The source said Hadeed was “picky” with food and was not re­ly­ing on reg­u­lar jail meals.

His le­gal team, in­clud­ing for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, vis­it­ed him on Wednes­day af­ter­noon af­ter the lat­est court pro­ceed­ings. The source said the lawyers usu­al­ly vis­it Do­minic and Genevieve Hadeed one af­ter the oth­er.

Ef­forts to con­tact Al-Rawi to ask about how the Hadeeds are far­ing in prison were un­suc­cess­ful.

Genevieve is be­ing held at the Women’s Prison on the Gold­en Grove Prison com­pound.

How­ev­er, an­oth­er source re­ject­ed any sug­ges­tion that Hadeed is re­ceiv­ing spe­cial treat­ment.

“The con­di­tions are the same,” the source said.

That source said all in­mates are med­ical­ly as­sessed when they en­ter the prison sys­tem and that health or di­etary needs are man­aged through the prison med­ical of­fi­cer.

But the source said the prison sys­tem is op­er­at­ing with lim­it­ed re­sources.

“It’s the same thing. That is all we have to give,” the source said when asked whether high-pro­file de­tainees were re­ceiv­ing bet­ter food or treat­ment.

Hadeed and his wife, Genevieve, are be­ing de­tained un­der emer­gency pow­ers af­ter po­lice said they were in­ves­ti­gat­ing an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

Their de­ten­tion has trig­gered a fresh le­gal bat­tle. But the com­plaints about the con­di­tions un­der which they were held are not new.

Al­though Hadeed’s habeas cor­pus com­plaint last week pushed the coun­try’s prison con­di­tions back in­to court and pub­lic de­bate, ex­ist­ing re­ports, court cas­es and prison of­fi­cers had al­ready shown that the State had been warned about the same prob­lems for decades.

In court fil­ings, Al-Rawi, who filed the ini­tial court ac­tion on be­half of the Hadeeds, al­leged Do­minic Hadeed suf­fers from sleep ap­noea and wears an or­thopaedic leg brace. He al­leged Hadeed was held at the Care­nage Po­lice Sta­tion, where he was forced to sleep on a bare con­crete slab with­out ac­cess to his CPAP ma­chine be­cause there was no elec­tri­cal con­nec­tion in the cell.

The fil­ings al­so al­leged Genevieve Hadeed was held in a dirty cell with no bed­ding, poor ven­ti­la­tion, roach­es and a hole in the floor used as a toi­let.

The prison source said peo­ple de­tained un­der a PDO are first tak­en to the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC), then placed at fa­cil­i­ties such as the Re­mand Prison, Gold­en Grove, the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison or ECRC, de­pend­ing on the risk as­sess­ment.

Prison of­fi­cials, the sources said, con­sid­er gang links, safe­ty risks, med­ical needs and sep­a­ra­tion is­sues be­fore plac­ing de­tainees. Around 10 or 11 peo­ple had been brought in un­der PDOs and, so far, two had been sent to St Ann’s for as­sess­ment af­ter suf­fer­ing men­tal break­downs two weeks ago.

One of the de­tainees re­mains at the psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal.

“It is a re­al trau­mat­ic thing com­ing in­to the prison,” the source said, adding, “not every­body, men­tal­ly, is able to man­age that.” The source de­scribed the sys­tem as “the best of the worst.”

Re­ports raise con­cerns

That is the same broad­er is­sue raised in nine re­ports and sev­er­al court cas­es over the past 73 years.

For­mer in­spec­tor of pris­ons Daniel Khan’s 2012 re­port re­mains one of the key pub­lic doc­u­ments on the state of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pris­ons.

Khan de­clined to com­ment for this sto­ry, but his re­port traced prison re­form warn­ings back to the Wright Re­port of 1945, the Gar­rat Re­port of 1963, in­ter­im re­ports from the 1970s, the 1977 mem­o­ran­dum on the Gold­en Grove Re­mand Prison and the 1980 Ab­du­lah Re­port.

The 2012 re­port al­so said sev­er­al ear­li­er rec­om­men­da­tions were not adopt­ed.

It re­viewed com­plaints and ju­di­cial find­ings about over­crowd­ing, san­i­ta­tion, toi­let fa­cil­i­ties, med­ical care, ven­ti­la­tion, ex­er­cise, and hu­mane treat­ment.

More than a decade af­ter Khan’s re­port, the same is­sues con­tin­ue to sur­face.

Guardian Me­dia iden­ti­fied sev­er­al le­gal chal­lenges and re­port­ed court fil­ings in which pris­on­ers and de­tainees com­plained about prison con­di­tions, de­ten­tion con­di­tions, med­ical ac­cess, air­ing, food, san­i­ta­tion and treat­ment in cus­tody.

In Col­in Edghill’s con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion in 2004, the court found he had been sub­ject­ed to cru­el and un­usu­al pun­ish­ment at the re­mand sec­tion of the Port-of-Spain Prison and or­dered com­pen­sa­tion of $20,550.

Four­teen years lat­er, Edghill re­turned to court, say­ing the State has still not paid him.

In 2008, pris­on­er Al­ladin Mo­hammed chal­lenged the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons over dai­ly air­ing, a spe­cial di­et and items pre­scribed by the prison med­ical of­fi­cer. The court found he suc­ceed­ed on the ma­jor­i­ty of the is­sues when the case was brought.

In 2015, Ra­jaee Ali, who has been de­tained at Teteron Bar­racks since Ju­ly 2025, filed a ju­di­cial re­view claim over dai­ly out­door ex­er­cise, re­li­gious in­struc­tion, food and more hu­mane ac­com­mo­da­tion at the Port-of-Spain Prison. The court grant­ed leave for the case to pro­ceed.

In 2020, the Jus­tice Seek­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and sev­er­al re­mand pris­on­ers chal­lenged prison con­di­tions dur­ing the COVID-19 pe­ri­od, rais­ing con­cerns about over­crowd­ing and health. That ap­pli­ca­tion was re­fused.

More re­cent chal­lenges al­so came from pris­on­ers held at Teteron Bar­racks, where court fil­ings and pub­lic re­ports raised con­cerns about poor ven­ti­la­tion, lim­it­ed wa­ter and san­i­ta­tion, food, med­ical needs and pro­longed con­fine­ment.

But con­di­tions have not been the on­ly is­sue raised. Re­cent prison health records ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia un­der a FOIA, on March 10, 2026, show an­oth­er con­cern.

The FOIA re­vealed that the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison record­ed 104 chick­en­pox cas­es be­tween No­vem­ber 11, 2025 and Jan­u­ary 16, 2026. The Prison Ser­vice said all con­firmed cas­es were con­fined to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, while five prison of­fi­cers al­so con­tract­ed the dis­ease at that time.

The FOIA stat­ed that the prison in­fir­mary or­dered iso­la­tion, move­ment re­stric­tions, sep­a­rate meal col­lec­tion arrange­ments, sus­pen­sion of non-es­sen­tial pro­grammes and stronger hy­giene. This was dif­fi­cult due to se­vere over­crowd­ing and lim­it­ed re­sources.

A pre­vi­ous chick­en­pox out­break was re­port­ed in Jan­u­ary 2013, af­fect­ing in­mates at the Port-of-Spain Prison’s re­mand sec­tion and the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, re­sult­ing in court mat­ters be­ing de­layed be­cause pris­on­ers could not be trans­port­ed to court.

The prison sys­tem has al­so faced con­cerns about oth­er com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases over the years.

A US State De­part­ment hu­man rights re­port re­leased on Jan­u­ary 30, 1997, warned that over­crowd­ing in T&T’s pris­ons had cre­at­ed se­ri­ous health prob­lems and that dis­eases, in­clud­ing chick­en­pox, tu­ber­cu­lo­sis and HIV/AIDS, spread eas­i­ly among in­mates. Sim­i­lar con­cerns about over­crowd­ing and poor prison con­di­tions have con­tin­ued to ap­pear in sub­se­quent hu­man rights re­ports over the years.

Sub­se­quent an­nu­al hu­man rights re­ports con­tin­ued to raise con­cerns about se­vere over­crowd­ing and poor prison con­di­tions. Re­ports cov­er­ing 2004, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2021 all de­scribed con­di­tions in some of the coun­try’s pris­ons as harsh, un­san­i­tary and over­crowd­ed.

In the FOIA re­sponse, the in­fir­mary plead­ed for PPE, gloves, masks, gowns, and clean­ing agents. In­ter­nal doc­u­ments warned that with­out im­me­di­ate re­in­force­ments, the risk of non-stop trans­mis­sion re­mained sig­nif­i­cant­ly high.

Con­tin­u­ous com­plaints

At­tor­ney Nicole Mara­jh told Guardian Me­dia the com­plaints are not lim­it­ed to old cas­es. She said her clients con­tin­ue to bat­tle in court over prison and de­ten­tion con­di­tions, in­clud­ing buck­ets and floor holes used as toi­lets, cells with rot­ting fae­ces, roach­es, rats, lack of air­ing time and poor treat­ment, es­pe­cial­ly at Teteron.

Mara­jh said she was “very much con­cerned be­cause pris­on­ers have rights, but yet still those rights are not ad­hered to.”

She claimed some de­tainees, in­clud­ing those not con­vict­ed, are be­ing treat­ed “as though they are not hu­man be­ings.” Asked whether she was op­ti­mistic about re­form, Mara­jh said: “Hon­est­ly, I am not op­ti­mistic that change will hap­pen be­cause this has been go­ing on be­fore I have been prac­tic­ing.”

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said the is­sues should not on­ly come to the fore­front be­cause high-pro­file peo­ple are de­tained.

“I re­al­ly want to has­ten to say that this is­sue of the con­di­tions that pris­on­ers have to un­der­go, es­pe­cial­ly re­mand pris­on­ers for whom there is a pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence, should not re­al­ly come to the fore­front on­ly be­cause a high-pro­file pair of per­sons has been de­tained,” Seep­er­sad said.

He said many peo­ple held on re­mand are even­tu­al­ly re­leased with­out be­ing con­vict­ed. “It means, there­fore, that there is a cross-sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion who would be de­tained, who would be sub­ject­ed to the poor con­di­tions on re­mand and then re­leased,” he said.

Seep­er­sad said prison con­di­tions are linked to wider so­cial prob­lems, in­clud­ing re­of­fend­ing. He said the old re­mand fa­cil­i­ty at Gold­en Grove was one of the worst he had seen in the Caribbean be­fore it was de­stroyed dur­ing the COVID-19 pe­ri­od of ri­ots and lat­er re­built.

But he said the wider prison sys­tem still leaves much room for im­prove­ment.

Seep­er­sad said pris­ons are of­ten viewed as suc­cess­ful once peo­ple do not es­cape. He said that view re­duces pris­ons to a “hu­man dump­ing ground.”

He again warned that poor prison con­di­tions can make the coun­try less safe. Poor con­di­tions, vi­o­lence, trau­ma and lack of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion can make peo­ple more dam­aged and more con­nect­ed to crim­i­nal net­works.

Ac­cord­ing to him, the ex­ist­ing prison en­vi­ron­ment al­so af­fects of­fi­cers. A re­cent sur­vey, he said, he did with a col­league, found that over 60 per cent of prison of­fi­cers showed di­ag­nos­able lev­els of post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der.

Still, he re­mains pes­simistic about ma­jor re­form be­cause spend­ing heav­i­ly on pris­ons car­ries po­lit­i­cal risk.

He be­lieves gov­ern­ments may fear pub­lic back­lash if they are seen to be im­prov­ing con­di­tions for pris­on­ers.

Of­fi­cers claim no im­prove­ment

Mean­while, Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don said the con­ver­sa­tion around prison con­di­tions has been the same for years. He pre­dicts that in 100 years, the is­sues, warn­ings, and re­ports will be the same.

Asked whether any­thing has changed—even in the slight­est way—Gor­don laughed then re­spond­ed, “Ms Gon­za­les, it has got­ten worse. There has been no im­prove­ment.”

He said the sys­tem is so strained that of­fi­cers do not have uni­forms. Gor­don al­so re­ject­ed the idea that prison ca­pac­i­ty is on­ly about space. “These peo­ple are not box­es,” he said.

The sys­tem needs cells, staff, wel­fare of­fi­cers, in­fir­mary of­fi­cers, emer­gency re­sponse of­fi­cers, ca­nine units, tech­ni­cal staff and prop­er in­fra­struc­ture, Gor­don list­ed.

For it to work, Gor­don said the prison ser­vice needs a “heavy in­jec­tion” of re­sources, lead­er­ship and new think­ing.

Vi­sion on Mis­sion’s CEO Giselle Mashana (for­mer­ly Chance) said hu­mane prison con­di­tions should not be treat­ed as a com­fort or priv­i­lege, but as part of jus­tice, pub­lic safe­ty and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion. “Hu­mane prison con­di­tions- it’s not just about giv­ing the per­son in cus­tody a com­fort­able place; it’s not just about com­fort or priv­i­lege,” she said. Mashana said if pris­ons are ex­pect­ed to re­turn peo­ple to so­ci­ety bet­ter pre­pared, “the con­di­tions with­in the prison must sup­port that.”

Ef­forts to get a re­sponse from Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe were un­suc­cess­ful.