Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion has warned that its mem­bers may have to re­con­sid­er their sta­tus as an es­sen­tial ser­vice, in­clud­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of strike ac­tion, as mount­ing health, safe­ty, and fi­nan­cial is­sues con­tin­ue to af­fect the ser­vice.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the As­so­ci­a­tion’s head of­fice, Pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don ex­pressed se­ri­ous con­cerns over the pro­vi­sion of free med­ical care for of­fi­cers. He re­vealed that 15 of­fi­cers died last year, while 25 ac­tive of­fi­cers passed away in 2024, re­flect­ing what he de­scribed as a deep­er cri­sis im­pact­ing the health, well­be­ing, and longevi­ty of prison staff.

“All of this is work­ing to­geth­er to short­en the life of a prison of­fi­cer,” he said.

Gor­don added that the sit­u­a­tion has be­come emo­tion­al­ly and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly drain­ing for of­fi­cers, many of whom now ques­tion whether they will ever reach re­tire­ment age.

“It is a very dis­heart­en­ing and hurt­ful po­si­tion for all of us, be­cause you start to ques­tion whether you will even see re­tire­ment,” he said.

Gor­don linked the is­sue di­rect­ly to con­cerns over Na­tion­al In­sur­ance ben­e­fits, not­ing that of­fi­cers re­tire at 55 but must wait un­til 65 to ac­cess full NIS pay­ments.

“That is why the NIS is­sue is such a big prob­lem,” he stressed. “In spite of reach­ing out and writ­ing, we have not got­ten any re­sponse to try and ad­dress it or to see what is hap­pen­ing.”

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Lester Lo­gie called for ur­gent labour re­form, ar­gu­ing that prison of­fi­cers must be grant­ed the right to strike to en­sure fair and re­spect­ful treat­ment.

“When you look at the labour leg­is­la­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, we re­al­ly have to ex­am­ine labour re­form and al­low prison of­fi­cers the right to strike,” Lo­gie said. “That is the on­ly way they will see the val­ue of their labour.”

Prison of­fi­cers, along with oth­er pro­tec­tive ser­vices, are des­ig­nat­ed as es­sen­tial work­ers un­der cur­rent law, mean­ing they are pro­hib­it­ed from strik­ing. How­ev­er, Lo­gie ar­gued that this des­ig­na­tion has cre­at­ed im­bal­ance rather than pro­tec­tion.

“We can­not be es­sen­tial just in name,” he said. “If we are es­sen­tial and need­ed so much, this is not how you treat the peo­ple you need.”

Lo­gie added that with­out the abil­i­ty to with­draw their labour, of­fi­cers have lim­it­ed tools to pres­sure the State to ad­dress long-stand­ing is­sues, in­clud­ing safe­ty con­cerns, de­lays in med­ical care, over­time ar­rears, and pen­sion re­form.

Gor­don fur­ther re­vealed that many of­fi­cers do not live to see their 60th birth­day, rais­ing se­ri­ous ques­tions about work­ing con­di­tions and long-term health out­comes.

“You have this group of peo­ple who, more of­ten than not, are not go­ing to see their 60th birth­day,” he said. “Sec­ond Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers re­tire at 55 manda­to­ri­ly. What we are see­ing now is an ex­o­dus from the ser­vice.”

The As­so­ci­a­tion is strug­gling to keep pace with nor­mal at­tri­tion, as of­fi­cers not on­ly re­tire but al­so choose to leave ear­ly at age 50, fear­ing they may not sur­vive long enough to ben­e­fit from their pen­sions.

“We are un­able to keep pace with nor­mal at­tri­tion. On top of re­tire­ment, peo­ple are leav­ing at 50 be­cause they are gen­uine­ly con­cerned they may not reach 55,” Gor­don said.

Lo­gie al­so raised con­cerns about ac­cess to free med­ical, den­tal, and op­ti­cal care, say­ing of­fi­cers work un­der chal­leng­ing con­di­tions—in­clud­ing poor light­ing and shift work—which con­tribute to health is­sues. De­spite promis­es, many of­fi­cers are not re­ceiv­ing these ben­e­fits, and ac­cess ap­pears un­even across ranks. The As­so­ci­a­tion has been forced to cov­er ur­gent med­ical ex­pens­es out of its own funds.

An­oth­er con­cern is the han­dling of Firearm User Li­cence (FUL) ap­pli­ca­tions. Lo­gie not­ed that while some long-stand­ing ap­pli­ca­tions are mov­ing through the sys­tem, of­fi­cers are still un­able to law­ful­ly pur­chase firearms for per­son­al pro­tec­tion.

“All we re­quire is an amend­ment to the Act to al­low us to pur­chase our own firearms un­der a sep­a­rate pro­ce­dure. The cur­rent sys­tem leaves room for cor­rupt prac­tices, and the gov­ern­ment needs to ad­dress that.”

He warned that con­tin­ued in­ac­tion could force the as­so­ci­a­tion to seek ju­di­cial in­ter­ven­tion.

The Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion is call­ing for ur­gent at­ten­tion to these is­sues to safe­guard the health, safe­ty, and rights of of­fi­cers across the ser­vice.