00:00Association President Gerard Gordon says the response from the authorities has
00:05been lukewarm and lacklustre. He adds that many officers are becoming
00:10discouraged and some have mentally divorced themselves from the job. Gordon
00:16tells TV6 the current situation arose after inmates threatened to retaliate if
00:22they were moved from building 13. According to him prison officers are
00:27existing in a state of hopelessness and are fed up. He says the Commission of
00:33Prisons is doing all he can to assist but more is needed from the government.
00:37The Prime Minister would have responded, even the President would have responded
00:41even though those responses were simply an acknowledgement of receipt. The
00:48Minister has not been so kind as to even acknowledge receipt of a number of
00:54letters we would have written. So we continue to see and we would have said
01:00it before in the media is that and I know we in silly season and there's not
01:06anything political we are not political in any way but we were adamant that Mr.
01:14Hines should step aside and they should give us back Stuart Young but we know
01:21Gordon says the Association has been lobbying for legislation to protect
01:26officers but that has fallen on deaf ears. One of the things that we asked for
01:32and to date we have not gotten any movement on is we have asked for the
01:38implementation of a law enforcement officer safety act which would speak it
01:45would show that the state now is intimately involved in managing the
01:50safety of not only prison officers but police officers customs immigration
01:56wherever you have law enforcement who is doing a job and as a result of doing
02:02that that job threats they are given threats what we are seeing is that we
02:08have to put ourselves in a position to protect the protectors. Also speaking
02:13with TV6 was General Secretary Lester Logee who noted the level of danger
02:19officers face daily. He says their lives are constantly at risk. My concern is
02:26that you could always get another job you could always look for another job
02:31but you have one life and that is the reality we are facing now and I mean it
02:43is better to start over than to continue it with this job we are doing
02:47we didn't we didn't come here to we didn't join this work to be gunned down and murdered.
02:52Mr. Logee sought to explain just how dire the reality of the situation is.
02:59We would have lost Mr. Glenford Gardner, a good friend of mine. He's a cockswing on the
03:05boat working Carrera and he lost his life based on a search at Port of Spain where
03:11we took away some phones and they put the phone in his hand to send a message
03:18so when officers seeing that it have officers will turn a blind eye they
03:26would see inmates on their phones and they will turn a blind eye because they
03:30realize I have no support. The Association executives tell TV6 many
03:36officers live in the dormitory which is also in a dilapidated condition because
03:41they fear for their safety. They add that several calls for safe houses have
03:46not yet borne fruit. Nicole M Romany, TV6 News.
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