Prison officers ‘fed-up’ of the system

Inmates at the various prison institutions across TT are reportedly giving prison officers a hard time in the wake of reports from an inmate a few weeks ago that prisoners were being sexually abused by prison officers. Commissioner of Prisons Carlo McHoney dismissed the  claims by the inmate that prisoners were being sexually abused by prison officers, but an investigation is yet to be held to get all the facts. In the meantime, the allegations, which were given exposure via the media, have triggered increased prisoner resentment against officers.

This information comes from President of the group, Vision on a Mission, Wayne Chance, in an interview with Sunday Newsday last week. Vision on a Mission, is a group which deals with the rehabilitation of ex-inmates who return to society after their prison term. Chance said the latest development about prisoners retaliating against the prison officers is of concern and he is calling on authorities to deal with the problem. Prison officers, however, said that inmates retaliating against them is not a new development and happens from time to time. But whether it occurs regularly or not, Chance said there is a need for more in-depth training of prison officers in order to handle the myriad of psychological problems associated with prisoners.
The inmates are becoming rebellious against the system’s rules and regulations and are making it difficult for the officers to control them.

Adding to the difficulties, is the large influx of prison inmates coming into the system, making the workload a heavy burden for prison officers. “There are incidents in which the prisoners are retaliating against them, for example, when the prison officers are sending them to their prison cells. They are telling the officers things such as, ‘Yuh can’t lash me now you know.’ It has brought about a negative impact on disciplinary measures by the prison officers,” Chance disclosed. He said according to what he has heard, inmates have become unruly, doing things they normally do under supervision — on their own time, as well as challenging the officers to hit them. “They are doing this so they can go to Court and tell the Magistrate that the prison officers are taking advantage of them,” he said. He recalled that when he was in prison over an eight-year period, he witnessed prison officers using abusive force on inmates on numerous occasions.

However, Chance defended the prison officers’ position, saying that in most cases, it was because the inmates were rebellious, not wanting to conform to rules and regulations. He gave as an example, such as when prison officers are taking head-checks on the number of inmates. He said during this time, inmates sometimes use the opportunity to frustrate the officers to the point when they end up using excessive force. “Not that prison officers have a right to brutalise anyone, but we understand they also have a mandate to ensure that the rules and regulations of the prison system are executed effectively,” he said. McHoney was unavailable to comment on the issue last week.

More training needed for Prison officers

Chance said because of the influx of inmates at all prisons, officers need professional training. “Prison officers definitely would need more training to deal with inmates. We need more correctional prison officers rather than what currently exists, training in psychology, conflict resolution, anger and risk management, a number of specialised training because they will come across inmates of different criminal nature coming into the system,” he explained. He said because of the type of criminals they are now dealing with, prison officers need to have the expertise to treat with the various elements in a professional manner, rather than having to attack the prisoners.

“There are other ways and means prison officers can use that would get the inmates to conform, without using violence against the inmates,” said Chance. He urged prison officers to be mindful of this, pointing out that aggression against inmates will not help in rehabilitating them, but rather push them into isolation and greater rebellion. As a result of the retaliation, prison officers are now distancing themselves from the prisoners. “They are afraid of inmates making allegations because they can make allegations in a number of different ways. For example, using a razor-blade on himself and saying he was being abused,” said Chance.

He pointed out this situation as an example of the psychological challenges with which prison officers have to face. “A number of the inmates have to be isolated and monitored by prison officers for their own safety. The height of the safety risk is only one of many reasons why officers are disenchanted with the prison system,” he said. Chance said the number  of prisoners accommodated in the Port-of-Spain and other prisons is way beyond the capacity and the work-load, too much for them to handle.

Warning for corrupt prison officers

Chance said rumours that corrupt prison officers are engaging themselves in illegal activities such as trafficking of marijuana and cellular telephones to inmates have been going on for quite some time. “It means that a large number of corrupt prison officers still exist today,” he said. He said like any other institution, there will be the bad and the good.

“The prison service is not an institution of angels and God-fearing officers, there will be the corrupt ones and the good ones, there are those officers who will take a bribe and will do the bidding of inmates,” he said. He warned those engaged in illegal activities, that they will eventually be brought to justice since the relevant authorities do not condone such behaviour. He said that recently there have been meetings between the prison authorities and prison officers who have been warned that they will be dealt with accordingly.

Woes of prison officers in the ‘slammer’

Prison officers who were willing to talk to Sunday Newsday, said in addition to having to put their lives at risk and deal with aggressive behaviour from inmates, they have to work in what they described as “demoralising and inhumane” conditions. One officer attached to Golden Grove Prison, said it is demoralising to an officer to come to work and sit on “half-a-piece” of iron, backed up by bricks, for most of the day almost every day for the week. The officer said that doing this on a constant basis, is giving him back pains and rips up his uniforms. He said other prison officers suffer the same lot and have to sit on broken benches or make-shift seats.

“Imagine, we work in priority government institutions and this is what we have to put up with. They even take money out of our salary if the uniforms get damaged,” he said. Overall, they complained about the heat and the lack of ventilation. Another officer claimed that junior prison officers were being victimised by the senior ones in the form of verbal or physical abuse if they did not conform to their whims and fancies. He said currently, a report about a senior prison officer assaulting a junior,  is being investigated by the relevant authorities. They did not deny rumours about trafficking and other “racket” taking place among prison officers in the slammer.

Giving an example, one source called the name of a senior prison officer, who steals food that the prisoners’ families take for them. Another officer alleged that there is another senior officer who was taking free lessons on the subject of law, from prisoners who were formerly employed in the legal service and were charged for corrupt practices. He said as part of the officer’s free law training, the senior officer would allow certain inmates to go to his office unescorted and sometimes even use the telephone. However, the junior officers are unwilling to report the incidents for fear of being victimised. They told stories about senior officers paying inmates money to bribe them for errands and other deeds.

In addition, they have to put up with environmental conditions, such as the stench of excrement and droppings from pigeons and rats. “The pigeons are making nests in the roofs, the bird mess drops on us and cats are running through the jails and making it their homes,” a prison officer lamented. They said they have no safety equipment when checking the inmates in vehicles, especially during isolation when prisoners, suspected of contracting the HIV/AIDS virus or tuberculosis, have to be removed from a cell.

 
Inside the prison —

Overcrowding, HIV, TB, excrement and rodents

Wayne Chance is concerned that the overcrowding in the prisons is a major health hazard. Each cell, which is supposed to hold two to three inmates, now holds about eight to ten prisoners. The prison population in TT is approximately 8,000 with about 150 inmates on death row. “Ten persons to a cell means they cannot afford to have a bed and the inmates are sleeping on cardboard on the floor. They throw excrement in the corridors of the prison when their personal buckets are overfilled since there is no toilet in the cells,” he said. Chance said that the stench is one of the reasons why many prison officers refuse to work in the inmate division of the prisons. “There is also a lot of cockroaches and other rodents crawling all over the prisons, causing a number of health hazards. The prisons are in a bad state.”

A few months ago, President of the Prison Officers’ Association, Claudius Gulston had said the prisons were overtaken by rats, cats and pigeons and the situation is still the same today. Chance said while he knows that homosexuality in prisons is not condoned by the authorities, there have been sexual activities occurring among inmates. As with last weekend’s issue in which Sunday Newsday dealt with “Youths sexually abusing youths in correctional facilities,” the older inmates take advantage of the younger ones by wooing them through offers of their basic necessities, such as toiletries and clothes.

They target the younger ones through other material desires such as cigarettes and marijuana. According to Chance, they will “give their body over and sex to another inmate,” to get the things they want. He agreed that this sort of activity is a catalyst for the spread of HIV/AIDS, since inmates are coming into the system already infected with the deadly virus. He said another major health issue is tuberculosis and its impact on infecting an entire prison cell. Chance said when an entire cell gets infected, everyone who was in that cell has to be isolated.

Response

Gulston said as the body representing prison officers, the Prison Association has always made representation and recommendations for improvements but it has received only promises so far. “We know that the problems are causing serious health hazards and a major one is the overcrowding of the prisons. In order to alleviate some of them, there is need to upgrade all the prison facilities and expand them so there will be better ventilation,” he said.

Gulston said so far, there have only been short-term measures, in which the Ministry of Health did some spraying at the prisons. McHoney could not be reached for comment. An official from the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice, which produced a research report on the prison system titled, “Prison Recividism: Towards Reduction, Rehabilitation and Reform,” said the recommendations in the report have been accepted by the Ministry of National Security as a guideline for policy action towards improvements in the system.