When the justice system fails us

WHEN I close my eyes and try to sleep, I am haunted by the images of a little girl running through the market after gunmen killed her father, prison officer Nigel Jones. Just days before this incident another prison officer, Trevor Serrette, had been killed.

It is time to remove the blinders and face the fact that we are creating a culture of violence that produces assassins in this country. Of course, we don’t use the word assassin whenever a prison officer is murdered because we operate like ostriches with our heads in the sand and write off all violence as senseless, evil and unexplainable acts.

While our prisons swell and fester with a population that always hovers around 65 per cent of inmates on remand waiting ten to 12 years – or even longer – for their cases to snake their way through the injustice system for a capital offence, we fool ourselves into believing justice is being served, but injustice prevails. Justice is a muddled, dysfunctional state of affairs.

We set prison officers up to be pawns in a justice system that fails us. We produce and nurture the murderers and assassins among us. We are terrified to use the term assassin, but make no mistake about it, it is an appropriate term because the assassination of prison officers is a political statement being made against our justice system that results in mass arrests for crimes, long delays of court cases and appalling conditions innocent and guilty people live in while waiting for their trials.

I did not know the two prison officers assassinated in the last few days, but I do know that their place in a long list of assassinated prison officers (29 at last count) cannot be written off as a problem stemming from officers’ abuse of inmates. We cannot deny that this does occur. The clashes we see on leaked videos are evidence of frustration on both sides that all lead back to the injustice system.

Hits on prison officers are meant to strike back politically at the Government’s unwillingness to reform the justice system. These assassins strike fear in those of us who are associated with prisons because we know these hits are random.

Don’t fool yourself into believing that the murdered prison officers are men chosen for some kind of personal payback for their behaviour as prison guards. Prison officers are the pawns in this battle that renders inmates voiceless for over a decade.

Some of the best and fairest prison officers have been assassinated. I knew four of them.

I knew the prison officer who did nothing but drive the boat from Carrera to Chaguaramas. He never interacted with inmates in a prison cell.

I knew the assassinated prison officer who served as a carpenter in Port of Spain Prison and worked on my library project there. He had little contact with inmates.

I knew the assassinated prison officer who worked at Rise Radio. He taped our radio soap opera in Port of Spain Prison and gave inmates a voice.

I knew Wayne Jackson, the superintendent of Maximum Security Prison (MSP), a respected leader who was generally perceived as a fair person.

We are in for dark days unless we face our problems. Here’s my list of urgent reforms for the justice system.

1. Create fair and effective policing practices and a better system of police investigation to prevent mass arrests that include innocent people who wait over a decade in remand to be released. Use DNA evidence.

2. Reform the Constitution to include a provision for speedy trials.

3. Crack down on lawyers and prosecutors who use dilatory tactics to prevent trials from taking place for years until cases are thrown out of court.

4. Implement restorative justice at the judiciary level. Not everyone should be tossed into prison. There are more meaningful ways of giving back to society. Punishment is not the sole answer for many crimes.

5. Provide incentives for businesses to hire at-risk youth and individuals who have returned to society.

6. Create more meaningful rehabilitation and skill-based programmes in prison for inmates to re-enter society. I have been doing this with PVC furniture making, decorative tiling and barbering classes.

It is our duty to demand that the Government reforms the justice system. Write to your representative. Make your voices heard.

I am appalled and disheartened at how prison officers are being targeted. Stop the bloodshed. Address the problems within our justice system. Think of that little girl who once had a prison officer for a father.