00:00The four facilities listed as detention centers for the state of emergency are
00:04Carrera Convict Prison, the Women's Prison, the Remand Prison at Golden Grove
00:09and the Eastern Correctional Rehabilitation Center. As the country
00:13marks 14 days into the SOE with over 500 people arrested, Acting Prisons
00:18Commissioner Carlos Carraspe provides insight into their detention.
00:23I just want to say also that not because a facility is designated as a detention
00:30center, that means a priori that persons may be sent there. But for obvious
00:34reasons, because we're not sure the numbers of persons to be detained, we
00:39would have to start to prepare facilities. That is what we are in the
00:42process of doing. As you well know, as at this time, there are no detainees in
00:47the prison jurisdiction as of yet. It comes as General Secretary of the Prison
00:52Officers Association, Lester Logie, expresses concern over Carrera and
00:57Golden Grove. He says Carrera is a convict prison for a reason. It makes it
01:03unfit for detainees to be there.
01:06Um,
01:08officers would have issues with the condition of the dormitory. They are
01:12almost collapsed and
01:16the vessel that we use is in need of urgent repairs. It should have been
01:21dried up
01:23approximately two years ago.
01:26Logie notes that if Carrera is used at any point for detention, transportation
01:31of detainees and their visitors via sea will be required as the regulations
01:36outline visits as part of the rights of people who are detained. As for Golden
01:41Grove, we would have written the minister and the prime minister on that
01:46facility where there is no alarm.
01:49Yeah,
01:51the roof sorry is leaking. There's flooding at the facility. There's mold
01:59in some areas of the facility. According to the association, the defects
02:03liability period has passed and it would cost a lot of taxpayer dollars to
02:08get a facility reopened. Logie says the association previously called for a
02:12commission of inquiry into that issue, further suggesting a need to review the
02:17contract practices as he claims taxpayers are not getting value for
02:22money. In response, Carraspe tells us Carrera is populated with inmates at
02:26this time, and if there is a dilapidation constraint, it is a
02:30continuing issue. Any issues that we have in terms of the infrastructure we
02:36have been engaged in the process to be able to ameliorate those circumstances
02:41to the best that we can. While the association did also raise concerns
02:45about the cells at the women's prison being left open at night, Carraspe
02:49tells us a decision was previously taken to convert part of the facility
02:54into a dormitory setting to facilitate women needing to use the washroom. So
02:59there is a gate that prevents the inmate from coming out of the division.
03:03It is simply that the cells are open for them to access the toilet facilities
03:07as required. In other words, all it simply did was convert a division where
03:13you had single cells to a dormitory setting by keeping the cells open, but the
03:17control is on the outer gate, which is containing the division.
03:21Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
