RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

New­ly ap­point­ed Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Den­nis Pul­chan has promised big ad­vances in the sys­tem mak­ing it more tech­no­log­i­cal­ly ad­vanced and in­to a cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty.

Pul­chan, who joined the ser­vice in 1983, was pro­mot­ed to the rank by the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion ef­fec­tive Sep­tem­ber 1, 2020.

He re­ceived his in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment dur­ing a brief cer­e­mo­ny in Port-of-Spain on Tues­day.

Pul­chan said he is ho­n­oured and hum­bled to be con­firmed in the po­si­tion and will con­tin­ue to serve the cit­i­zen­ry and up­hold the man­date of the Prison Ser­vice.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Pul­chan said he is very hap­py to reach the pin­na­cle of his ca­reer. “It is a feel­ing of an achieve­ment to be able to climb my way to the top,” he said.

Pul­chan said one of his goals that he has been work­ing on since 2020 is to move the prison to a cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty.

He said, “I am of the opin­ion that the word prison car­ries a neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tion to it. I would like to see the word prison re­placed by cor­rec­tions so that once some­one is in­car­cer­at­ed they will un­der­stand that they don’t need to fight the sys­tem but they are here for cor­rec­tive be­hav­iour.”

Pul­chan al­so said that one of his wish­es is to boost up the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor and re­vealed that 26 acres of land are al­ready be­ing cul­ti­vat­ed.

“This will make the pris­ons to­tal­ly self-re­liant. The 26 acres is main­ly for agri­cul­ture so I’m boost­ing the agri­cul­ture in the pris­ons ser­vice be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the short­age of food we in­tend to make the pris­ons self suf­fi­cient of food,” Pul­chan said.

Pul­chan al­so recog­nised the tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vances tak­ing place in the sys­tem where there are al­ready 12 video con­fer­enc­ing fa­cil­i­ties in the prison and “it seemed to be work­ing quite fine. So hav­ing to bring a high risk pris­on­er in­to Port-of-Spain and hav­ing the whole of the Port-of-Spain area locked down that will now be­come a thing of the past. I have al­so no­ticed that some of the cas­es are mov­ing rapid­ly.”

He al­so added that most of the pris­on­er vis­its are on­line which is more proac­tive al­low­ing them to see and talk to their en­tire fam­i­ly.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Le­gal Aid Au­thor­i­ty has brought in lap­tops for the le­gal aid lawyers to speak with their clients on­line, “so es­sen­tial­ly dur­ing my tenure the ser­vice the Prison Ser­vice has moved to more on­line ser­vices mak­ing it more tech­no­log­i­cal­ly ad­vanced.”

Asked if he will be seek­ing to ad­dress se­cu­ri­ty is­sues at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in­clud­ing the alarm sys­tem, Pul­chan replied that once he gets the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion he will ad­dress the is­sue.

Pul­chan said he has met with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds on sev­er­al mat­ters and is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue di­a­logue next week where an­oth­er meet­ing is sched­uled