A possible closure of the Remand Prison is looming as the Prisons Officers' Association (POA) has sued the State for what it deemed breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA) at the Arouca facility.
Justice Minister Prakash Ramadhar, permanent secretary in the Justice Ministry, Angela Sinaswee-Gervais, and acting Prisons Commissioner Sterling Stewart have been named as defendants in the lawsuit.
If the matter is successful, the State may also have to shell out a tidy sum amounting to close to $500,000 in fines for various violations of the act, as the POA is asking that each respondent pay $20,000 or such other sum prescribed by the court and that the said monies be paid into the Consolidated Fund of T&T.
In announcing the move during a press conference at the association’s Railway Road, Arouca, offices yesterday, POA president Ceron Richards also again called on Chief Justice Ivor Archie and the “Judiciary to resign” if they were unable to ensure that justice was properly and swiftly administered.
The eight-page lawsuit was filed last Friday at the Industrial Court, Port-of-Spain, by attorney Ravi Heffes-Doon on behalf of the association. Richards said, however, that a date for hearing was yet to be fixed.
Richards had initially threatened the action last week after prison officer Kerwyn Boswell was shot outside his San Fernando home.
The attack came weeks after prison officers and inmates had a confrontation at the Remand Yard while the officers were conducting searches.
The prison officers had claimed they had intelligence indicating that a hit had been taken out on them from behind the prison wall. The hit man was reportedly offered $50,000 a head.
At the time, Richards said the state was continuing to fail in dealing with their major safety issues in the prison. However, Ramadhar on Thursday announced that Cabinet had okayed some $12 million to implement a CCTV system within the prisons.
Richards accused Ramadhar, Sinaswee-Gervais and Stewart of failing to take “reasonable, practical steps” to ensure the health and safety of prison officers.
In outlining their case, Richards said their complaints included:
• Absence of adequate ventilation. Richards said in February 2013 over 70 per cent of 300 randomly selected inmates tested positive for tuberculosis
• Failure to provide toilets. Prisoners confined to overcrowded cells for approximately 23 hours a day defecated and stored their faeces in buckets.
Richards said besides the obvious health risks, that archaic practice in a poorly ventilated environment also presented serious security concerns as there have been instances where inmates have thrown the contents of buckets on prison officers.
• Failure to provide suitable and sufficient lighting. Richards said there was no lighting at all in some parts of the prison, as lights installed many years ago were “wholly inappropriate” for a correctional facility and were easily tampered with by inmates.
“The opportunities for violence and injury created by very dark corridors and cells need little explanation,” Richards added.
• The absence of certification by the Fire Services stating that workers at the Remand Prison have been provided with a means of escape in the case of a fire. “This offence under Section 26 (2) of the Act carries a fine of $10,000 or imprisonment for six years,” Richards added.
• Failure to have readily available firefighting equipment. Under the Act it carries a fine of $20,000
• No emergency plan or procedure to deal with the outbreak of riots.
“It is therefore clear that this complaint is not about formal or technical contraventions of OSHA but rather intolerable breaches which threaten the health and life of officers,” Richards said.
He said those matters were already brought to the attention of the State and were highlighted in numerous reports, including that of the November 2013 proposals of the Special Prisons Committee which was appointed by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
The lawsuit noted that prison officers did not have the right to refuse to work, although their safety or health were in danger, as other employees did. Richards also reiterated the call for arming prison officers, saying it had now become very necessary.
Saying there were currently between seven to nine inmates in a cell, Richards added: “If we do not threat with overcrowding... that in itself is the mother of all other circumstances because overcrowding breeds frustration and the reason for the overcrowding is poor administration of justice.”
Some 400 prisoners will be transferred from the Golden Grove Remand Yard Prison to the Maximum Security Prison, Arouca, bringing the total to be transferred there to 500 by the end of the process. Efforts to contact Justice Minister Prakash Minister were unsuccessful as calls and test messages went unanswered.