Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va- Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A day af­ter in­mates re­ceived recog­ni­tion for their piv­otal role in re­vi­tal­iz­ing Nel­son Is­land as a cher­ished her­itage site, Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar un­veiled his vi­sion of us­ing pris­on­ers for com­mu­ni­ty out­reach projects.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Com­mis­sion­er Ra­moutar said he aims to har­ness the un­tapped po­ten­tial of in­car­cer­at­ed in­di­vid­u­als, not on­ly to in­stil re­morse but al­so to ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pate in dis­as­ter re­lief, pre­pared­ness, and var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty out­reach pro­grams.

Ex­press­ing the Prison Ser­vice's pride in their col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Tourism for the Nel­son Is­land restora­tion project, Com­mis­sion­er Ra­moutar dis­closed his long­stand­ing sup­port for such ini­tia­tives. "As the Deputy Com­mis­sion­er, I met with for­mer or­ga­niz­ers of the Na­tion­al Trust, and we had an out­gang which in­cludes in­mates and of­fi­cers go­ing in­to the com­mu­ni­ty to as­sist as a labour force," Ra­moutar re­vealed.

He em­pha­sized that once the nec­es­sary ma­te­ri­als were pro­vid­ed, prison out­gangs were ready and will­ing to con­tribute their labour.

He said the scope of their work on Nel­son Is­land was sub­stan­tial and in­clud­ed tree cut­ting, land­scape clear­ing, build­ing restora­tion, and pres­sure wash­ing of the com­pounds.