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T&T Defence Minister reveals shocking breach: 65-inch TV in jail cell
Prison officers are so fearful of the criminal element behind bars that at least one of them was afforded the luxury of a 65-inch TV in his cell, while guns and other contraband items are easily trafficked into the prison system.The shocking revelation came from Defence Minister Wayne Sturge during a budget consultation at Three Roads, Freeport, on Wednesday night.Sturge said the items were discovered inside Building 13 at the Maximum Security Prison in Arouca, where the high-risk prisoners are housed.
“You would know that there are things that are allowed into prisons illegally. No one is surprised about marijuana and cocaine and other drugs and so on, and other types of contraband. But I don’t know if you are aware that recently, a couple guns were found in prison,” Sturge said.“That’s a serious security risk. But to tell you how far we have descended and which is indicative of how fearful prison officers are of some of the elements, there’s a certain prisoner, I won’t call his name, a certain prisoner who had in his cell in the infamous Building 13, which is reserved for the worst of the worst, he had in his cell a very large flat screen TV.”
He added, “Now, usually when you confront the prisons about how things are going in, they don’t seem to bring anything into the prison. It’s always drones dropping it in. So I don’t know how they dropped in a 65-inch TV.”Noting this was evidence of the deep entrenchment of organised networks behind bars, Sturge said, “On the one hand, we may believe that prison officers are corrupt. On the other hand, there’s another dynamic to it. There are human beings and they are subject to the same fears that we have. More so, where they work is where the prisoners live. And it’s not hard to find out where they live and so on. So they are obviously fearful.”
Highlighting the scale of the crisis, Sturge said six “very dangerous” individuals had to be extracted from the prison and relocated during the current State of Emergency because they could not be properly restrained.“In order to curb that, we had to cut off the head of the snake,” he said.
Prison officers are so fearful of the criminal element behind bars that at least one of them was afforded the luxury of a 65-inch TV in his cell, while guns and other contraband items are easily trafficked into the prison system.The shocking revelation came from Defence Minister Wayne Sturge during a budget consultation at Three Roads, Freeport, on Wednesday night.Sturge said the items were discovered inside Building 13 at the Maximum Security Prison in Arouca, where the high-risk prisoners are housed.
“You would know that there are things that are allowed into prisons illegally. No one is surprised about marijuana and cocaine and other drugs and so on, and other types of contraband. But I don’t know if you are aware that recently, a couple guns were found in prison,” Sturge said.“That’s a serious security risk. But to tell you how far we have descended and which is indicative of how fearful prison officers are of some of the elements, there’s a certain prisoner, I won’t call his name, a certain prisoner who had in his cell in the infamous Building 13, which is reserved for the worst of the worst, he had in his cell a very large flat screen TV.”
He added, “Now, usually when you confront the prisons about how things are going in, they don’t seem to bring anything into the prison. It’s always drones dropping it in. So I don’t know how they dropped in a 65-inch TV.”Noting this was evidence of the deep entrenchment of organised networks behind bars, Sturge said, “On the one hand, we may believe that prison officers are corrupt. On the other hand, there’s another dynamic to it. There are human beings and they are subject to the same fears that we have. More so, where they work is where the prisoners live. And it’s not hard to find out where they live and so on. So they are obviously fearful.”
Highlighting the scale of the crisis, Sturge said six “very dangerous” individuals had to be extracted from the prison and relocated during the current State of Emergency because they could not be properly restrained.“In order to curb that, we had to cut off the head of the snake,” he said.
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