POA: Put $50m towards new remand jail

Prison Officers Association president Ceron Richards. -
Prison Officers Association president Ceron Richards. -

Prison Officers Association (POA) president Ceron Richards said that $50 million allocated by Government to repair the remand yard at the Golden Grove prison in Arouca would be better spent and give more value to taxpayers by being put towards the cost of a completely new remand prison estimated at $250 million.

“We are of the firm view that Government should invest it to build a new, purpose-built remand facility,” Richards said when contacted by Newsday for a response to government’s announced $50m plan. He said the decades old remand yard has outlived its usefulness. “It is not facilitative to the needs of inmates and officers.”

“We will not support any patching up of that facility, because it will still be the same system and we will have the same incidents such as the last one where an officer was stabbed,” the association head said.

Asked if the Eastern Correctional Facility off the Churchill Roosevelt Highway would fit the bill as a replacement for the current remand yard, Richards said no. “It is not purpose-built.”

Richards said a new facility would cost $250 million but is worth the price. “If you simply spend $50 million to fix the existing facility, you go back to the same system of work and the same level of exposure of officers and inmates in the same cramped spaces.” Richards said there are hundreds of inmates charged for murder.

“The remand facility is populated with high-risk inmates,” he pointed out adding that the situation daily at remand yard was akin to a ticking time bomb. Lamenting incidents in recent years, he said the State as the employer of prison officers, has a duty to provide them a safe working environment under the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act.

He lamented the design of the existing remand prison as an impediment to implementing the OSH Act for officers. “The POA is not interested in any patch-up work at the Remand Prison.” He said the facility was actually designed as a cinema in the 1960s and only in later years was legally designated a prison.

Asked about morale among his officers, Richards said it had been low previously but with the covid19 crisis, actually has dipped even more, and featured some level of uncertainty and anxiety, even as inmates also have similar feelings. “But officers are patriots and are still coming to work to advance the interest of the State even with morale being so low and anxiety so high,” Richards pointed out.

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