Prison Officers’ Association (POA) president Ceron Richards says he has no faith in promises made by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to fix the prison system. Richards said he had no faith in promises made by politicians because over the years each government had only talked about prison reform but none had done anything about it.
“Politicians choose the right time and moment to say things to create certain emotions. Based on experience, many promises never materialise,” he said. In the same breath, he said he was cautiously optimistic about the PM’s announcement to set up a commission of enquiry into the criminal justice system.
“The recommendations are sometimes not implemented,” he said. “All these things are good. There is nothing wrong with them. It’s the aftermath. You pay people millions to conduct the inquiry and after that nothing is implemented.” Richards also noted the problems in the criminal justice system were already well known, implying that millions did not have to be spent to find out.
Nevertheless, the POA had called for a commission of enquiry into the issue since 2013, he said. As for the government’s plan to expand the Eastern Correctional Rehabilitation Centre and build a new remand centre at the Golden Grove Prison, Richards said he would always support any expansion of the prison system.
But, again, he expressed a lack of faith in politicians’ promises. “Politicians make popular statements. I have no faith in anything they say,” Richards said. Asked for his solution to the problems in the prisons, he said he had reiterated this numerous times. Persad-Bissessar, at the UNC’s Monday Night Forum at San Juan Secondary School, said a commission of enquiry would help devise ways to speed up trials and clear a backlog of cases.
Remand prisoners would get preference in the hearing of cases, she said. The expansion of the physical space of the prisons was to alleviate the horrors of overcrowding, she added. She said recommendations from a 2013 committee to look into prison reform were implemented, including providing more cameras and scanners at the prisons, as well as firearms and bullet and stab proof vests for prisons officers.