Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Den­nis Pul­chan said yes­ter­day’s protest at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca was fu­eled by ‘ag­i­tat­ed young men’ who were not hap­py with their new cell due to a lack of pri­va­cy.

Around 9 am, prison of­fi­cers had to re­spond to fires in three cells at the Wayne Jack­son build­ing, named af­ter the slain su­per­in­ten­dent who was killed out­side his home in 2018. Pul­chan said the in­mates had jammed the locks and iron­i­cal­ly his of­fi­cers had to save them from the very fire they start­ed.

“Of­fi­cers could not get in to put out the fire so they used hoses through the bars to out it. Those sponge mat­tress­es were lit by in­mates who are in the same cell as the fire, so I’m try­ing to fig­ure out why you’d want to en­dan­ger your own life.”

Pul­chan said the fires were start­ed by some young men who were re­cent­ly trans­ferred from the Port-of-Spain Prison but were not hap­py with their new ac­com­mo­da­tions. Guardian Me­dia was told by sources with­in prison walls that in­mates in that block were be­ing de­nied med­ica­tion, a bath and their air­ing time. The Com­mis­sion­er said that was all non­sense.

An emotional unidentified muslim man shares a light moment with a relative after being released from the Maximum Security Prison, Arouca, yesterday, while there was a disturbance at the facility.

Abraham-Diaz

“Let me tell you some­thing that place has one big yard, we are air­ing peo­ple, we are feed­ing peo­ple, the in­fir­mary of­fi­cer goes to them and gives them med­ica­tion, these in­mates are just ag­i­tat­ed be­cause they have been moved from var­i­ous sec­tions where they had a lev­el of free­dom in­to a con­fined area where they can be con­tained and man­aged ap­pro­pri­ate­ly.”

Com­mis­sion­er Pul­chan said there are eight peo­ple in a cell there so the in­mates have to un­der­stand that their pri­va­cy is lim­it­ed.

"I don’t know what pri­va­cy they want, this is not HY­ATT this is the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice.”

Guardian Me­dia was al­so told that in­mates were up­set be­cause sev­er­al so-called high-risk pris­on­ers were be­ing kept in that cell block such as Ra­jaee Ali and Phillip Boodram.

How­ev­er, Com­mis­sion­er Pul­chan said they had noth­ing to do with the protest.

“Ra­jaee Ali and Phillip Boodram are well be­haved, it was some young men who were trans­ferred that is caus­ing the ag­i­ta­tion.”

Pul­chan said be­fore mid­day the sit­u­a­tion was de­fused and a di­a­logue start­ed with the in­mates.

A fire truck is seen leaving the Maximum Security Prison following a fiery protest, yesterday.

Abraham-Diaz

On June 24, ex­plo­sives were found out­side the fa­cil­i­ty’s com­pound in Arou­ca, when Guardian Me­dia asked if that was linked to the trans­fer­ring of pris­on­ers, Pul­chan said he would not com­ment on an on­go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and he’s not sure how a link could be es­tab­lished there.

As for the mat­tress­es that were set ablaze, Pul­chan said the in­mates were pro­vid­ed with new ones.