RHON­DOR DOWLAT 

Se­nior Re­porter 

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt 

Prison of­fi­cials say there have been no ma­jor se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dents at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC) de­spite the fa­cil­i­ty hous­ing sev­er­al al­leged gang mem­bers.

So far, 19 al­leged gang­sters have been de­tained un­der the or­der of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter at the fa­cil­i­ty since the State of Emer­gency be­gan on De­cem­ber 30, last year.

Pres­i­dent of the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Ger­ard Gor­don, con­firmed that se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures have so far been ef­fec­tive, with ad­di­tion­al sup­port from ex­ter­nal agen­cies.

“Se­cu­ri­ty is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant to us, and so far, we have been able to man­age the sit­u­a­tion,” Gor­don said. “We al­so have the co-op­er­a­tion of ex­ter­nal agen­cies as­sist­ing with se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives at the fa­cil­i­ty.”

While se­cu­ri­ty is not a con­cern, the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion claimed there were sev­er­al is­sues that prison of­fi­cers and de­tainees face dai­ly, in­clud­ing ex­treme heat, leak­ing roofs, sewage prob­lems, and dif­fi­cul­ties with food de­liv­ery.

“The chal­lenges re­main the same,” he ex­plained. “We deal with un­bear­able heat, leaks, sewage is­sues, prob­lems with the roof, and even food de­liv­ery. These things af­fect both staff and de­tainees every sin­gle day.”

Gor­don was al­so crit­i­cal of the fa­cil­i­ty’s de­sign, re­it­er­at­ing that it was nev­er in­tend­ed to house in­mates.

“We were nev­er in favour of the ac­qui­si­tion of those ware­hous­es,” he stat­ed. “Suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments—not just this one—have failed to un­der­stand the im­por­tance of prop­er cor­rec­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture. A fa­cil­i­ty’s de­sign should en­able of­fi­cers to do their jobs ef­fec­tive­ly, not make it hard­er.”

Heer­ah warns of ‘volatile con­di­tions’

How­ev­er, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah cau­tioned that hous­ing ri­val gang mem­bers to­geth­er could cre­ate volatile con­di­tions if not man­aged with com­pre­hen­sive risk as­sess­ments and se­cu­ri­ty strate­gies.

“The ac­com­mo­da­tion of mul­ti­ple gang-af­fil­i­at­ed de­tainees at the ECRC rais­es crit­i­cal se­cu­ri­ty and op­er­a­tional con­cerns,” Heer­ah warned. “De­tain­ing in­di­vid­u­als from ri­val fac­tions in a sin­gle fa­cil­i­ty with­out com­pre­hen­sive risk mit­i­ga­tion strate­gies can in­crease the like­li­hood of in­ter­nal con­flicts, co-or­di­nat­ed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, and the strength­en­ing of gang net­works with­in prison walls.”

Heer­ah ques­tioned whether au­thor­i­ties had con­duct­ed a thor­ough Risk, Threat, and Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty As­sess­ment (RT­VA) be­fore plac­ing high-risk in­di­vid­u­als in the fa­cil­i­ty.

“While the au­thor­i­ties may jus­ti­fy the cur­rent arrange­ment as the best avail­able op­tion, the key ques­tion re­mains: Was a com­pre­hen­sive RT­VA con­duct­ed on ECRC pri­or to hous­ing these high-risk in­di­vid­u­als?”

He em­pha­sised the need for mul­ti-lay­ered se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols, en­hanced tech­no­log­i­cal ca­pac­i­ty, and round-the-clock sur­veil­lance to pre­vent con­tra­band smug­gling, in­fil­tra­tion, and or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty from in­side the prison. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he called for in­creased man­pow­er de­ploy­ment to en­sure or­der and con­trol.

Look­ing ahead, Heer­ah stressed that im­me­di­ate ac­tion is need­ed to mod­ernise the coun­try’s cor­rec­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture.

“I strong­ly rec­om­mend strate­gic plan­ning for the con­struc­tion of a state-of-the-art de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ty—one that is not on­ly se­cure but al­so de­signed with a Re­for­ma­tive Jus­tice ap­proach,” he said. “If we are tru­ly com­mit­ted to dis­man­tling gang cul­ture and fos­ter­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, our cor­rec­tion­al sys­tem must evolve be­yond puni­tive mea­sures to in­cor­po­rate ed­u­ca­tion, skills train­ing, and struc­tured rein­te­gra­tion pro­grammes.”

Heer­ah un­der­scored that in­car­cer­a­tion alone will not break the cy­cle of crime.

“This is an ur­gent mat­ter that re­quires fore­sight, strate­gic ac­tion, and strong po­lit­i­cal will,” he stat­ed. “The time to act is now.”

The ECRC has the ca­pac­i­ty to ac­com­mo­date up to 150 pris­on­ers.

Mean­while, Gor­don re­it­er­at­ed that prison of­fi­cers re­main ded­i­cat­ed to their du­ties de­spite dif­fi­cult con­di­tions.

“The work has to be done,” Gor­don said. “We can’t ex­pect overnight so­lu­tions, but these is­sues need ur­gent at­ten­tion if we’re se­ri­ous about main­tain­ing a func­tion­al cor­rec­tion­al sys­tem.”

The ECRC lo­cat­ed at Pin­to Road South, Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way, San­ta Rosa, was com­mis­sioned in Au­gust 2019 as an ex­pan­sion of the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre (IDC), af­ter iden­ti­fy­ing the need for an ad­di­tion­al place of de­ten­tion.

Ef­forts to reach Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Car­los Cor­raspe for com­ment on the mat­ter proved fu­tile as calls to his phone went unan­swered.