Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Two days af­ter a Dun­can Street man was spot­ted throw­ing con­tra­band in­to the Port-of-Spain Prison, he was caught again at­tempt­ing to throw more items in­to the fa­cil­i­ty yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the Prison Ser­vice Sports and Fam­i­ly Day held at the Prison Grounds in Arou­ca, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der con­firmed the man was held.

“Yes­ter­day, a lot of peo­ple had things to say about a man who threw some­thing over a wall at the pris­ons. And to­day the po­lice ser­vice was able to de­tain that man as he came to do the same thing again. So, you know, it’s ex­cel­lent work. It’s about com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween dif­fer­ent in­tel­li­gence agen­cies. And it’s go­ing for­ward from there. It’s where we need to go. We need to go for­ward in that di­rec­tion.”

Alexan­der could not say what was thrown in­to the prison.

Mean­while, act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe said af­ter Thurs­day’s in­ci­dent, the prison was searched, and 43 cell­phones and oth­er con­tra­band were found. Cor­raspe com­mend­ed his of­fi­cers for their ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty, say­ing the search re­sult­ed in threats to the of­fi­cers.

He re­mind­ed the in­mates that their pres­ence at the pris­ons was not by in­vi­ta­tion but by court or­der, and he and his of­fi­cers will main­tain or­der with­in the con­fines of all pris­ons, as is their man­date.

“I say to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, and I say to the in­mate pop­u­la­tion, no­body brought a sin­gle in­mate to the con­fines of the prison by virtue of an in­vi­ta­tion. There is a war­rant that is is­sued that com­mands the com­mis­sion­er to hold you there. And while you are there, there shall be law and or­der main­tained.

“We will con­duct our du­ties law­ful­ly. We will search every nook and cran­ny of every prison. We com­mand that space. We shall main­tain that space. And if it comes to threats to our of­fi­cers, I want you to know that we will stand firm. We will stand to­geth­er to en­sure that those threats do not come to pass.”

On the top­ic of mov­ing the prison out of the city, Alexan­der said while it was not a new idea, it is need­ed.

“That prison was there since God was a boy and it has out­lived its pur­pose in the re­al sense be­cause a lot of places have de­vel­oped around there. When you have a prison, you think about the se­cu­ri­ty for every­body around.”

He added that what­ev­er laws or sit­u­a­tions need chang­ing to fa­cil­i­tate the prison be­ing moved, he and his Cab­i­net col­leagues will do what they can to make it hap­pen. He said the prison is an eye­sore in the cap­i­tal.