Time to guard the guards

DINESH RAMBALLY

TREVOR SERRETTE was murdered recently while operating his vegetable stall in Valencia. He was a member of the Prison Service for over 26 years and was attached to the Wayne Jackson Building at the Maximum Security Prison (MSP).

Three days later, Nigel Jones was killed in the company of his young daughter at the Fyzabad taxi stand. Our collective soul writhes in agony at the thought of the psychological horror that must have overcome that child. According to newspaper reports, Jones was also attached to the Wayne Jackson Building at the MSP.

Who was Wayne Jackson? Acting Superintendent Wayne Jackson was himself a victim of crime, killed in 2018. In July of this year, Building 13 of the MSP was named after him.

It cannot be that we accept as the norm that prison officers can be killed so flippantly. They keep our internal enemies at bay from the rest of us law-abiding citizens in society. The borders that they patrol are the prison walls, which keep us safe from who is inside. Well, supposedly.

Now our officers are under relentless attack and more killings have been predicted. Is this not enough to make this society more traumatised than it already is?

There has always been an inherent suspicion in the phrase “who will guard the guard?” But not anymore. The question is, if anything, haunting. The mission statement of the Prison Service is as follows:

“The Trinidad and Tobago Prison Service as an arm of the Criminal Justice System is committed to the protection of society and crime prevention by facilitating opportunities for habilitation/rehabilitation for offenders, while maintaining control under safe, secure, and humane conditions.”

As laudable as that objective is, the irony is lost on no one. Imagine the very prison officers who are meant to protect society and control prisoners are now being deleted remotely, one by those same prisoners. What power lies in their hands! What far reaching commands they send out.

Even more distressing is that the authorities have been made aware of the threat from inside prison walls that more officers will die before Christmas. As warned, it is happening.

Are we really to assume that a handful of prisoners locked away in a cell are more potent, threatening and powerful than our entire national security apparatus?

If we really are to assume that they cannot be stopped even behind bars, then what is the ultimate threat of punishment to prisoners like those? Deprivation of liberty – perhaps the most significant factor in the criminal justice system – appears to be of no consequence to them, whereas anyone else’s head will overheat at the thought of making a jail.

If the jail cell cannot prevent these prisoners from having influence over, nor access to, their victims, we must ask ourselves why? Exactly what has gone wrong?

It is a no-brainer that cell phones are being used in their operations. How are these getting in? Again, who guards the guards? Are cell phone signal jammers in effective use?

While the plight of the prison officers is lamentable, the implication is more far-reaching than meets the eye. God forbid that the day comes when prisoners call a hit on members of the judiciary, because this is our last bastion of democracy.

The day our judicial officers can no longer operate without fear, we can say goodbye to justice which we have come to cherish, and goodbye to the institutions that we have come to depend upon for protection in a law-abiding country.

It is against this backdrop that we must urge the Prime Minister, the National Security Minister and the various arms of the National Security Council and whoever else it takes to ensure forthwith that this volatile situation does not get out of hand.

How many more prison officers must die before we arrest this highly untenable situation. Our prison officers deserve better. Our citizens demand better. The time for action is now!

Dinesh Rambally is the MP for Chaguanas West