Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

 Prison of­fi­cers’ lives are be­ing threat­ened on a dai­ly ba­sis as ten­sions are said to be ris­ing among in­mates in the sys­tem, es­pe­cial­ly at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) where, to date, 86 in­mates have test­ed pos­i­tive for the COVID-19 virus.

The ten­sions boiled over on Tues­day when some in­mates cur­rent­ly in the quar­an­tine sec­tion at the MSP at­tempt­ed a ri­ot over the late ar­rti­val of their meals. How­ev­er, the ri­ot was short-lived thanks to one prison of­fi­cer who quick­ly quelled the sit­u­a­tion and re­stored peace and or­der.

Sev­er­al videos were sub­se­quent­ly up­loaded on so­cial me­dia show­ing un­san­i­tary con­di­tions at the pris­ons. In­mates in some of the videos claimed there were 12 of them housed in a cell and that they were at all risk of con­tract­ing the virus that had now pen­e­trat­ed the prison sys­tem.

In a lat­est de­vel­op­ment, po­lice of­fi­cers are now in­ves­ti­gat­ing di­rect threats made on Tues­day to two prison of­fi­cers cur­rent­ly as­signed to the MSP.

At the Long­denville Po­lice Post, a 33-year-old pris­ons of­fi­cer told po­lice that be­tween 7.30 and 8.30 pm, he was on ex­er­cise du­ty at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison Arou­ca when he heard a male voice state, “Long­denville boss watch your back. We com­ing out just now.” The prison of­fi­cer told po­lice be­cause he is from the Long­denville area he felt threat­ened by the words.

In the oth­er in­ci­dent, a 39-year-old prison of­fi­cer told po­lice he was at the MSP around 7.30 pm when an in­mate he knows from Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas, who is present­ly on re­mand for mur­der, looked at him and said, “All al­lyuh tun key dead; es­pe­cial­ly you 500 boss.”

In an­oth­er video, one in­mate could be heard urg­ing the fam­i­ly mem­bers of in­mates who may live close to prison of­fi­cers to tar­get them.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the is­sues yes­ter­day, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Den­nis Pul­chan said all his of­fi­cers are be­ing threat­ened dai­ly but he as­sured that all is be­ing done to pro­tect them.

“Trust me,” Pul­chan said.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion called on the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Min­istry of Health to recog­nise that the prison rep­re­sents “an ex­plo­sive set of cir­cum­stances that re­quire a very fo­cused and ag­gres­sive re­sponse to en­sure the lives of the of­fi­cers and in­mates are pro­tect­ed as much as pos­si­ble.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion, how­ev­er, as­sured that in the in­ter­im they con­tin­ue to ad­vise mem­bers that self-preser­va­tion is para­mount.

“They leav­ing we to get sick and dead!” the re­lease said.

“Over the years, the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has had to nav­i­gate a very hos­tile en­vi­ron­ment, for and on be­half of our mem­ber­ship, lit­tered with is­sues sur­round­ing of­fi­cers be­ing mur­dered, as­saults on the job, poor and un­san­i­tary work­ing con­di­tions, fail­ing and falling in­fra­struc­ture, non-pay­ment of over­time etc. Now we must add the very re­al is­sues sur­round­ing COVID-19 and its as­so­ci­at­ed chal­lenges to our mem­bers.”

It added, “One must note that not with­stand­ing the pub­lic gen­er­al un­sym­pa­thet­ic pos­tur­ing in re­la­tion to the con­di­tions un­der which pris­on­ers are held, that most in­mates re­turn to so­ci­ety. The prison en­vi­ron­ment has been de­scribed by some as “sta­tion­ary cruise ships” where cruise ships have been proven to be some of the most high­ly con­ta­gious en­vi­ron­ments for the spread of the virus.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion said it had al­ready seen some up­heavals in the sys­tem and ex­pects more in­ci­dents be­cause the man­age­ment con­tin­ues to place both of­fi­cers and in­mates in ex­treme dan­ger.

It said the pro­vi­sion of PPE equip­ment is al­so ei­ther in­suf­fi­cient or ab­sent.

“The as­so­ci­a­tion is of the view that the need for PPE in the prison is on the same lev­el as that of a med­ical in­sti­tu­tion hous­ing COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tients. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a prop­er op­er­a­tional au­dit should be done to en­sure those rolled back ac­tiv­i­ties are con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tored and as­sessed to en­sure cross con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and in­fec­tion be re­duced to a min­i­mum, if at all.”

Re­spond­ing to the as­so­ci­a­tion’s com­ments, Pul­chan said: “Of course my of­fi­cers are very im­por­tant to me and I will make sure I do my best to get the best for them. It is a high risk job and my of­fi­cers are es­sen­tial work­ers.”