An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts have wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to use in­mates serv­ing hard labour sen­tences to clean and main­tain pub­lic spaces, but say the ini­tia­tive must be built around re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, care­ful in­mate se­lec­tion, prop­er risk as­sess­ments and strong se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der an­nounced on Tues­day that in­mates sen­tenced to hard labour will soon be used to clean and main­tain pub­lic spaces as part of the Gov­ern­ment’s crime pre­ven­tion strat­e­gy.

Alexan­der said the ini­tia­tive would en­cour­age and sup­port pris­on­er re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion by al­low­ing in­mates to demon­strate pos­i­tive be­hav­iours be­fore be­ing rein­te­grat­ed in­to so­ci­ety.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, for­mer head of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC) and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah wel­comed the ini­tia­tive but warned that it must form part of a mod­ern cor­rec­tion­al phi­los­o­phy.

“For far too long, many prison sys­tems across the re­gion have been viewed pri­mar­i­ly as places of in­car­cer­a­tion,” Heer­ah said

He said the pro­pos­al to rein­tro­duce hard labour for con­vict­ed of­fend­ers de­serves se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion.

Heer­ah said a prop­er­ly man­aged cor­rec­tion­al sys­tem should serve as a place where of­fend­ers de­vel­op dis­ci­pline, vo­ca­tion­al skills, work ethics and a re­newed sense of pur­pose.

Claim­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go pos­sess­es a sig­nif­i­cant labour re­source with­in its prison pop­u­la­tion, Heer­ah said, “If strate­gi­cal­ly man­aged, this work­force can make mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tions to sev­er­al na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly prepar­ing in­mates for suc­cess­ful rein­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety.”

He said the op­por­tu­ni­ties ex­tend well be­yond en­vi­ron­men­tal clean-up ex­er­cis­es, not­ing that prop­er­ly su­per­vised in­mate work pro­grammes could sup­port sev­er­al na­tion­al ini­tia­tives.

These in­clude na­tion­al en­vi­ron­men­tal up­keep and beau­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grammes; agri­cul­ture and food pro­duc­tion ini­tia­tives that strength­en na­tion­al food se­cu­ri­ty; clean­ing, paint­ing and ex­te­ri­or main­te­nance of Gov­ern­ment build­ings and State fa­cil­i­ties; land­scap­ing and main­te­nance of pub­lic parks, recre­ation grounds and high­ways; preser­va­tion and clean­ing of beach­es, rivers, drains and wa­ter­ways con­tribut­ing to en­vi­ron­men­tal re­silience and flood mit­i­ga­tion; and sup­port ser­vices for dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and post-dis­as­ter re­cov­ery op­er­a­tions where ap­pro­pri­ate.

But he stressed, “Suc­cess will de­pend en­tire­ly on ef­fec­tive man­age­ment and co­or­di­na­tion.

“Prison labour pro­grammes can­not sim­ply in­volve trans­port­ing in­mates to work­sites. They re­quire com­pre­hen­sive plan­ning, risk as­sess­ment, su­per­vi­sion and ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

He warned that this is not sim­ply a cor­rec­tions ini­tia­tive but rather a na­tion­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty ini­tia­tive.

He said that, if im­ple­ment­ed prop­er­ly, such pro­grammes can re­duce in­mate idle­ness, im­prove dis­ci­pline with­in cor­rec­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, low­er re­cidi­vism, re­duce op­er­a­tional costs and de­liv­er tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits to com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try.

Heer­ah re­mind­ed that ul­ti­mate­ly, the ob­jec­tive is not mere­ly to pun­ish those who have of­fend­ed against so­ci­ety.

Heer­ah: A mod­ern prison labour pro­gramme should in­clude:

• Ad­vanced in­mate clas­si­fi­ca­tion and risk as­sess­ment.

• Com­mu­ni­ty work suit­abil­i­ty as­sess­ments.

• Elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing, in­clud­ing GPS track­ing where ap­pro­pri­ate.

• Se­cure com­mu­ni­ca­tions and op­er­a­tional over­sight.

• Body-worn cam­eras and mo­bile com­mand ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

• Trans­port lo­gis­tics, emer­gency re­sponse and med­ical sup­port.

• Prison of­fi­cer train­ing in dy­nam­ic se­cu­ri­ty, of­fend­er man­age­ment, lead­er­ship, con­flict res­o­lu­tion and op­er­a­tional su­per­vi­sion.

• Co­or­di­na­tion among the Prison Ser­vice, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions, Agri­cul­ture Min­istry, Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­istry and en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment agen­cies.

Na­hous: Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, se­cu­ri­ty es­sen­tial

Se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Paul Na­hous says the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to use in­mates serv­ing hard labour sen­tences to clean and main­tain pub­lic spaces could be suc­cess­ful, but on­ly if it is built around re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, prop­er risk as­sess­ments and strong se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew, Na­hous said the pro­pos­al was “not a bad sug­ges­tion at all” but warned it was a far more com­plex is­sue than many peo­ple re­alise.

“The suc­cess of this is all de­pen­dent on the frame­work and how it’s man­aged,” he said.

Na­hous ex­plained that on­ly con­vict­ed pris­on­ers sen­tenced to hard labour would be el­i­gi­ble, not re­mand in­mates, and stressed that any pro­gramme should com­ple­ment ex­ist­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ef­forts with­in the prison sys­tem.

“The pub­lic likes to see that peo­ple are be­ing pun­ished, and I’m not dis­agree­ing be­cause I have ze­ro sym­pa­thy for crim­i­nals. How­ev­er, we have to un­der­stand that it’s a pub­lic safe­ty is­sue. Be­ing puni­tive alone does not de­ter re­peat of­fend­ers. It does not stop ca­reer crim­i­nals,” he said.

He ar­gued that mean­ing­ful re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion would do more to re­duce re­of­fend­ing than pun­ish­ment on its own.

Na­hous al­so said in­mates se­lect­ed for out­side work pro­grammes should un­der­go care­ful as­sess­ments and would like­ly be pris­on­ers near­ing the end of their sen­tences.

He added that the ini­tia­tive would place ad­di­tion­al de­mands on prison of­fi­cers, as es­cort­ing in­mates out­side prison walls would re­quire far more than sim­ply as­sign­ing armed guards.