Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: I do have the President. Whoa.
Yeah, I didn't realize that because I wasn't. You was hearing it really long. Yeah, sorry. I could have done that because this. Yeah, something short in here. Sorry about that. Oh, gosh. I see you take it off way by. Sorry. Sorry. You could pay back on you, right? Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. Oh, my goodness.
All right, so we get into the president in a little bit.
[00:00:31] Speaker C: But.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: But let me explain something to you guys that I felt is of great necessity given the fact that I made a pronouncement on it yesterday and I was accused of being in support of the SO bill, the Special Operations Bill. What happened was.
What happened was in me looking to address the situation.
I was accused of being a unc. I was accused of not being neutral. I was accused of supporting the bill, all kind of things. And people said that I didn't understand what Mr. Mohammed was stating to me yesterday. But they enjoyed the interview, was thorough.
They felt that he didn't answer the question, which he kind of did. It was a lot a mixed emotions yesterday by various persons who reached out to me. But one thing was very clear by certain individuals who also work in government offices is that you.
Davey Murray was absolutely correct.
You see, everybody danced around the guys that. Senator Wade. President. Senator Wade Mark.
Senate President. Sorry, Senate President Wade Mark cast a ballot in favor of government on a bill that can infringe on the constitutional rights of persons in areas because they were crackdown. It could be this, it could be that. We understand all of that. The question that came into for was, did the Senate president erd.
When he cast his vote in favor of the government and did not follow precedents and conventions of the past and voted with the status quo, he had three options. And this is why I broke it down in layman's terms, because I wanted Trinidad and Tobago to understand it is not about the bill and what he. No, the talk was, let us circle whether he did not the right thing, but whether he was allowed to exercise his civic duty and he functioned within the remit of the chair and the office he holds. Because you see, when he's an office holder, you have parameters, boundaries and borders. You have a certain amount of space you could use.
But some people don't use the whole space.
They use some.
Some people as a manager, you're given a $500,000 budget for the first half of the year and it's customary that you don't spend all you give back some you try and minimize and then one manager sits down in the position and utilizes the entire 500,000 and have his checks and balances improve the look of the station and the look of the office and whatever and you want to kill him. Why he did that? He was supposed to give back at least half of that. But where was it written in law? So the point I am simply making is that if other Senate presidents had the same choice and choose not to to follow some Westminster system or whatever they was following, that was their choice.
They did not exercise the entire perimeter that they had to use. They used some of it.
They didn't utilize all. So similarly, it's the same thing if Senate, if Bridget, Anisette, George and others who sat there had the same opportunities, but they did not use all of it. Why you want to kill Mark? Because he did it.
And look he did it again last night.
Look he do it again. You remember tell all your legislative thing because he do it again and the procurement bill will pass.
So yes, the status quo raised very pertinent issues. There was one so he he looking at the all the the independent senators forget the opposition.
Chances are they're going to vote against it anyway. Forget them. But the independence is who are focusing on and if all of these independents did not support it it should have according to the society trigger something in Mark's brain. Hey hey, you going on all these people in supporters. Maybe she will go back to this he choose yeah, what going on die all your business. I cast in my vote I go in this direction.
It is unheard of because nobody never did it before but it was still never legislated as law that he can't so earlier don't shoot the messenger please law this morning I have made it very clear I am not 100% in support of the bill because of the type of thing I felt other things needed to be amended. I all agreed. But don't tell me that because I say that Mark did what he was within his remit that I support the bill. No, I didn't even support Mark for what he do in terms of voting for government. I believe he should have remained neutral abstain from the vote and also send it back. But when he cast his ballot in favor of government I had to make sure that he could have done it. And the fact that he could do it it doesn't mean because you vexed do it because mean he couldn't do it.
I'll leave it there. Good morning to you.
As I switch gears this morning I say good morning to Jared Gordon, president of the Prison Officers association, no stranger to the show and always, well, 90% of the time takes my calls.
There are times he out in the country and he can't take it. And sometimes he just be bidding, yes, sometimes. But he's here. But he's here this morning.
Master Gordon, good morning to you, sir.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Good morning, Davey. Good morning, Davey. And good morning to your listeners this morning.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: It is one of those mornings when I got up.
I was battling the flu last evening and felt I couldn't make it this morning. Then I remember I had so much commitments on the show this morning.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Oh, yes.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: And I couldn't stay away. So good morning to you, Jared Gordon. And let's get right into it, your concerns this morning. Finally, what is this prison reform? What is taking place?
What is being told to you as the president of the Prison Officers association, that this government intends to do
[00:06:33] Speaker A: nothing, but we continue to advance our position as it relates to what prison reform should look like, especially for Trinidad and Tobago. It's more much needed.
You know, we are of course happy with the closure of the impending closure of Porter Spain Prison.
If people would remember, I would have made that call.
And subsequently the then commissioner was a bit offended.
So he said, Peter Porter, speed to work.
But it is important for the people of Trinidad and Tobago. And you know, these discussions have been happening for decades, Davy.
But I want to shift it away from the usual direction it goes where we speak about the conditions that the officers work under when we speak about the conditions that the our charges occupy. And I want to shift it to how important it is for public safety that we have institutions that are able to properly, effectively and efficiently rehabilitate offenders, you see, because without that, we of course are experiencing the failings of that 268 year old facilities, facilities that are not fit for purpose, facilities that are not being maintained. And I want to make it clear that this is at the least of it an infrastructural deficiency. And it is more deficiency in our ability to serve the public of Trinidad and Tobago and ensure that those who offend that when they are released, over 90% of the population, they certainly can contribute positively to nation building. And that is where I think our focus should be. So if we are improving conditions, it is not simply to hold people, but it is to change people. And that is where it should lie.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: I am deeply concerned about one aspect of what you shared a few moments ago.
We are about to close the Royal Jail, declare the building inhabitable well, it has been. It has been inhabitable for a long time.
[00:09:18] Speaker D: For a long time.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: We're finally going to remove the habitants, as it were. We're going to move persons out and get them away from that facility.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: The process that has started already.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: Good.
Here's my concern.
Where are we going to put them? We already have an overcrowding situation at the Golden Grove Prison. The maximum prison will be housing some of them. Again, that maximum state facility was designed for persons basically serving time.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Serving time, not remandees. Correct.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: So we're going to put them there. The ECRC is in a very deplorable condition. The physical infrastructure is not even fit for your dog to be in your puppy. But humans aren't there. We got those stories out of the last SOE when detainees were released with cockroaches and rat infested. In some instances running water was unavailable, absent. So we're going to move how many hundreds of prisoners from there.
We have Carrera island prison which is also in a dilapidated position. Yes, lack of maintenance. So did we get any conversation where tenders went out to contractors? We have earmarked this area and we are going to do.
I use the term El Salvador. So we build a clean proper state facility to house individuals with rehabilitation centers included and remand infrastructure. So you on remand? We have a wing for you guys multi storied because you might have the land space to go wide. You could go up, you could go four floors up. But you expand and then you have. When you are convicted you are centered block A, B, C. And then you have the front arrangement and then you have. Yeah, so you have those with serious crime. Do we have that? They're closing the prison to put the prisoners.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: So one of the things I always After 28 years of being a prison officer that always amazes me is our ability to make something out of nothing.
If you would remember, there was a huge riot at the remanyard at Golden Grove prison some years ago that occasionally occasioned of course some rehabilitative work on the building that we have at the association dubbed the paint and potty prison.
There are and continue to be some challenges there. But based on my discussions with the commissioner, I know that there are some attempts to rectify some of the issues as it relates to water supply, as it relates to one of the big issues. And you see, I don't want to sometimes beleaguered the point, but when we contract companies to do this sort of work and their specialty, the center of what they do is not based in correctional infrastructure. We end up in problems that we are ending up in currently because some of the toilets which were installed in the cells are inoperable at this point in time and only to discover with some of my preliminary questioning, we don't even know where we're going to get spares to be able to repair those places. And it has not even been used as yet.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Which, which.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: That is the remand. That is the remand prison in Golden Grove.
It is so a lot of persons are going to be placed there.
After the riot. We would have placed a number of inmates. A number of them were held at what we call the external remand facility, which is on. On the Golden Grove compound. In fact, it is the converted cell block, what we call the cell block or punishment or separation division.
So those people will be coming back across.
The thing about it is that more than ever, it speaks to why we need to fast track the construction, as you pointed to, of a new facility. And not simply constructing a new facility, but constructing a new facility with the view of allowing us some sort of breathing room to conduct the sort of maintenance and upgrades and restoration of existing facilities, namely that maximum security prison and that eastern Correctional Rehabilitation Center. That is important. So simply move. It is my hope that yes, we are moving ahead with the closure of Port of Spain, but on the back end of that, I am certainly hopeful that we would see in short term the construction of a new facility. I know that the government, in their infrastructural plan and developmental plan, they spoke about the correctional campus at Tamina, 500 acres. Of course that is going to cost a lot of money.
And of course, time is something that we know how time tends to go.
We believe that there is a better plan and it's not something new or novel. But that gated area that, that fenced area just show just south of the maximum security prison, certainly there is enough land space there that would enable us to do some construction in quick time because correctional infrastructure and designs and technology has advanced to the point where the turnaround time using the technology that we have available now certainly is not going to see a prison taking 15 years to be built.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: We take a commercial break 26 minutes before the hour. We're talking with the Prison Officer association president, Gerald Gordon.
My concerns to you, Master Gordon, is this you? Before the commercial break, we talked about that land, that piece of real estate south of the current maximum security prison in the eastern part of Trinidad, which is just in the Aruka Dabadi Aruka area close to the Maloney residence.
Now I have a problem with us building a facility to house some of the country's most notorious that close to a residential community for two reasons. One, any breakout which has happened in the past, they are close to Bonaire Maloney, Arauca environs, Oropoon. They in a particular space where they could terrorize residents law abiding citizens in those areas. It's very easy to get into them. It's very easy to lock somebody in there, get a car, bus out, try and steal it's right. That's one. And two, I have driven numerous times on the Golden Grove road or even traversing the highway close to the Golden Grove prison facility. And when those jammers are installed residents in the area who live on doing business, they are seriously and adversely affected by these jammers. Your thoughts?
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Let me break it down, let me take it piece by piece.
The issue of our new facility being built in that area presents from where I sit, no increase threat to the surrounding areas.
Because currently we have the only maximum security facility already there.
We have Golden Grove convict prison, we have the Golden Grove reman yard, we have the external remand facility, we have women's prison, we have the YTRC Whitey all in that little block, that expanse of acreage right there. And if historically, if we look I not wanting to toot our own horn. I mean anytime you talk about correction and prison escape is always a possibility.
But based on the length of time that those facilities have occupied those spaces, I think you may be able to only count on your hand the number of times we have had any major escape.
Usually we are able to contain challenges that we have.
Usually we are able to get support from other arms of the protective services in treating with any untoward upheaval that me which is rare arise.
So I know it may not totally alleviate the concerns but certainly the proof has been in the eating which is currently the issue with the jamas is one that I believe may have some technological solutions that possibly that we need to explore to reduce the as much as is practicable the effect to those persons who live near to those said facilities.
And I do think it's an insurmountable challenge to do so. But I think that seeing when you talk about supply chain, when you talk about services, it could in fact represent like a dry run, if one would want to say much more than a dry run of having all of those different facilities within one particular area in preparation. Hopefully if it comes off the ground that facility at Tamana.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Beautiful. Let me take a call before I continue with our interview. Good morning. All right, I saw the calls coming through. Hello.
All right, 625-2257. My WhatsApp is up and functioning now. So, guys, you can message me or even send your voice notes if you have. Good morning.
[00:20:24] Speaker D: Good morning, Davy. And a pleasant good morning to your guests.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: Good morning.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: Good morning. Karen E. Central.
[00:20:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:20:29] Speaker D: Many years ago or for many years, and there were inmates at the prison who would have learned certain trades. Some also did exams, all level exams and so on, and they were successful. So one wonders, so the first question is, is that still in place?
[00:20:52] Speaker A: Yes, it is.
[00:20:53] Speaker D: The second issue I want to raise this morning is that as a counselor, myself, as a mediator, certified mediator and practicing one, I will tell you, in order to get counseling or mediation, the parties must agree first to mediation, certainly. So the rehab that we talk about, is it that inmates are asking to be rehabilitated, or is it something that the authorities, whether it be government, whether it be prison officers, whomsoever is trying to enforce onto them. And final question is, I hope you remember the three questions. Final question, the condition in the prison, is it due to normal wear and tear or is it by inmates destroying state property at the prison? I thank you. Enjoy.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: All right, thank you very much.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: So the issue of. So the first thing he spoke about, the programs, when I say programs, the studies, people doing exams, learning, trade and whatnot. Yes, that continues at the nation's prisons, that is ongoing.
The other issue about mediation, I want to state that in the correctional environment, where, yes, mediation is certainly important,
[00:22:19] Speaker C: what
[00:22:20] Speaker A: happens is that when somebody is convicted, what we need to set up and assess and develop is a treatment plan. Plan. Because what we look at firstly is what caused the individual to offend in the first place. And certainly we know there are whole varying number of reasons and combinations of reason. It's never really one. So we could have a combination of poverty, some sort of mental deficiency. You have substance abuse, you have people who are unable to manage their emotions for some reason, for want or the other.
And so we have to develop a treatment plan to address these shortcomings with this individual. And so prepare them not only by education and trade, but ensuring that they are able to manage themselves.
And without us doing that, certainly even mediation by itself would not be as successful. And I remember some time ago, I was on an interview and I told them, if we are doing classes, let's say O level classes, and the inmate has homework, as they do, but they going back into a cell where the lighting is poor, where there is no place to sit, where it is them and eight others.
How are we expecting them to succeed?
And certainly we would want to have an environment. And this is where the conditions that he spoke to.
He asked if it is because the inmates are destroying or if it's because a normal wear and tear. And I will say it's a combination.
Because when you, when you look, you remember these people occupy this space 365 days a year for years. And you know, one of the things that we see in our jurisdiction that no matter how I speak to it, the psychology of the individual who is remanded is totally different. The same man who remanded unsure of what is happening with his case, he don't know what happening with his future.
From the time that person is convicted and they start to serve their sentence, it's a different.
Immediately you see a different individual because now they know when the end is.
And I cannot speak to how impactful that is. And that is why we have been calling and speaking to the fact and why we support the Chief justice because of the opening of the law term. He made some statements and so we want to encourage his efforts and encourage the judges and the magistrates to support the Chief justice because those calls were important.
Once the court become more efficient and more effective, the police become more efficient and effective with their investigations. I saw they were able to solve some murder, they were able to arrest somebody within quick time, within recent time. I think yesterday I was reading the newspaper with that. And I want to encourage that once we become more efficient there it should translate into persons either being acquitted or convicted and not spending 8, 9, 10 years in remand yard. I cannot stress enough how that hinders the work of the prison service because all we could do with the remanded individual generally is feed them. Is feed them.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: All right. Hello, good morning. Quickly, we are heading to the top. So please Suggestion or question?
[00:26:25] Speaker C: Mr. Gordon?
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:26:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm hearing you.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: Good morning. Morning, sir.
[00:26:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm hearing you right. Mr. Gordon, I want to find out from you. Do you believe from a prison standpoint enough is being done to reduce the prison population from a prison standpoint? Because I really and truly believe that we keep some persons in prison unnecessarily. I believe to myself that we need to find a way to continually reduce the prison population by using those persons we consider to be model prisoners and allowing them that lease outside so they could get back into society.
I would like to see a System whereby like when a prison commissioner retires, he's allowed to carry out 10 inmates with him, five female, five male. No, seriously, because he would have been there, he would have cast an eye, he would have known who are the individuals who are likely not to go outside and do what they did to get it back inside of there. Now, secondly, I want to say this to you, I'm glad to hear you speaking out a new prison.
Because what we need to do is bulldoze all the prisons we have in Trinidad and Tobago and build two new prisons and for female, for male and for female. Right. Because if we do, if we do not do that, Mr. Gordon, the state will meet good lawyers that would have them spending millions for the violation of persons human rights under the conditions under which prisoners are held in this country.
So we need to do this thing and we need to do them urgently. And reducing the prison population by trying our best to determine those persons who are not likely to do it again and get them out of prison back into normal life. I listen to your comments.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: Yes. So in addressing this whole issue and thinking between reducing the population, it is that there is a multi layered and multifaceted response to that.
What we have to understand is not simply about determining guilt or innocence or who is a good boy or a bad boy, who following the rules or not.
We need to employ a number of alternatives to incarceration. There are certain offenses that, from where I sit, doesn't require the person to serve a custodial sentence.
And so they could do community service.
We could have them work and part of their wages be garnished and paid to the victim of whatever offense it may be. I'm not talking about capital offenses here, of course, but I'm saying there are so many opportunities to look at alternatives. But here, what's the challenge? How do we get to the point of actually even attempting to employ an alternative to a custodial sentence if the matter, the case is held in abeyance because you have samples at Forensic Science center not being dealt with because they are overburdened and overwhelmed up there.
You have the police and then the multiplicity of investigations and how things happen. You have the DPP office who has said it's no secret they are short staff, they don't have the complement of prosecutors certainly that they would want to have. So it's an entire shift that has to happen. And this is where I always see the criminal justice system in Trinidad and Tobago does not function as a complete organism.
You have everybody operating in their size silos. And as long as the prison doing what it wants, the police doing what it wants, forensic doing their thing, the judiciary doing something else, DPP office and everybody. And there is no collaboration with after. The equal sign for all of us is that whole issue of public safety.
And if we don't have that collaborative drive, if there is no one looking to gel and bring together, see how well these pieces fit and if they're not fitting, make some adjustments so that they do fit. For years I've been speaking about having a unique alphanumeric identifier for offenders because what can happen, the court will have a number for the case, the police will have their own unique identifier when they come to the prison. It's another thing. And what I'm saying is that all of these records should be held together so that it's easy to transfer things through the system as we advance.
I think what he spoke to was the building of the two facilities.
We have to remember that we have juveniles in our system too.
And the thing about it is not simply male and female. We have classification and we have classification for a reason. We don't mix convicted with remanded.
Even amongst the convicts. You have condemned individuals who have to be held separately. You have star convicts, you have ordinary, you have special.
Ideally you would want to have the latitude and the space to be able to classify these people properly, separate them. You have people who have the means. I mean we have some high profile people who are incarcerated. You don't want them mixing with the guy who is there. He probably didn't pay his maintenance and so he finds himself behind the walls of the prison. So building a facility we have to move away from looking at a one size fits all. No, it's not.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: And I can appreciate that. In conclusion, we are going to see. Well, you said the migration has started.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Yes, it is.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: So is there a sunset as to when this is expected to conclude?
[00:32:49] Speaker A: From what I heard, I think they are targeting somewhere the end of November.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: So by the end of November we could see the Port of Spain prison, the 200 plus year building, the state facility known as the Royal Jail. That's the Royal Jail no longer in operation.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Yeah. There before Porter Spain ever existed.
It will be no more.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: It will be no more. And these places that these prisoners along with faculty moving to is not the best. So we probably are going to going to have a little bit of overcrowding.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: What we will have is some adjustment.
What I am hoping is that, and I hope that somebody probably at the ministry is Listening. And this is why we said nobody is speaking to us. And it's not that we don't want to ever appear to be obstructionist in any way, but what we are saying. There are certain things that may be overlooked that certainly we would be able to elucidate to ensure that notwithstanding. We know it's not perfect, but there are certain key elements that we believe need to be.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: We could navigate it through in the sorts. In these short term. Interruptions in the short term. All right. With that being said, I want to thank you for coming in. I'm thinking out loudly here in my brain, are we sending prisoners to the ecrc? Those containers are empty.
[00:34:18] Speaker C: Not that.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: No, no, they.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Well, some of them, because some of the so people going, yeah, so with the so people going, we're going to put them there in those containers.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: So nobody is being.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: Not that.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: Not that you're aware of. So most definitely they're very. They're being moved to the maximum security
[00:34:35] Speaker A: area, as far as I'm aware. MSP and Golden Grove.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: What about Carrera?
[00:34:38] Speaker A: Golden Grove.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: No, no Carrera either.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: All right. And my final question to you please. In less than in about 30 seconds, do we have a population of more remandees?
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: Than we have convicts?
[00:34:51] Speaker A: About two thirds of our population is remandis. Yeah. About 3,000 odd. We have just about a thousand or so convicted. Convicted.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: So we have more Remandis.
[00:35:01] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: President Gordon, I thank you very much for coming in. I am out of time, so we'll have to leave it there for this morning. I thank you again for coming through and being a part of the rumble.
[00:35:10] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: You're welcome, sir.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.
