By Orville Williams
After a massive raid at Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) earlier this month, a number of fresh proposals have been made to improve security at the correctional facility.
The search and seizure operation ended with the confiscation of dozens of weapons, cell phones and other contraband, which alluded to a blatant disregard for prison rules, along with the long-held suspicion of involvement by prison officers.
And according to this week’s post-Cabinet report, the proposals for tightening security include completing the two towers intended to deter people from throwing items over the prison walls, constructing an “internal buffer fence at the eastern border of the prison”, and furnishing the facility with more safety equipment and an additional vehicle.
The prison’s human resources are also set to be addressed, with rotation of the officers “responsible for checking entry and exit … utilising metal detectors and other kinds of security systems”, and improving the inmate-to-officer ratio which now stands at nearly 40:1.
“The security breaches are to be looked at from both sides – whether or not there have been any physical breaches, which improved surveillance will help them to [address], but [also] internally, in terms of internal controls, how they’re going to have to deal with that,” Information Minister Melford Nicholas told yesterday’s post-Cabinet media briefing.
“Clearly, if there are breaches that are allowing contraband items to be available to prisoners, it would mean that they may have dangerous equipment at their disposal, which would cause prison officers – who have to attend to them in their cells – to be feeling insecure.”
To improve the inmate-to-officer ratio, it was revealed that at least 40 more officers are to be trained and deployed. However, it could be some time before that injection of human resources is realised.
“That was put on the table [on Wednesday]. I don’t think that they received a definitive yes or no from the Cabinet; it is a matter that the Attorney General and his team have got to come back and look at,” Nicholas said.
The presence of prohibited electronics, particularly cell phones in the prison will also be looked at, with Nicholas revealing that new ideas are being considered for ‘cell-jamming’ equipment to be introduced.
It is not the first time this type of technology has been suggested, but there were sustained concerns back then about the inadvertent impact on the general public. Now, there is some hope that those concerns can be remedied.
“The head of the prison, Mr [Jermaine] Anthony did raise the issue [on Wednesday]. It’s an issue that we had looked at before, but because of the centralized location of the prison – close enough to commerce – it would have been infeasible for jamming equipment to not affect [persons] outside of the prison.
“Mr Anthony did avert that he is aware that there [are] directional jamming signals that can be used, and so I’ve indicated to him … I would certainly avail myself of that information, and have my technical team look at it,” Nicholas said.
More than 60 cell phones, laptop computers, portable transformers, a TV set and speakers were among the electronics seized during the aforementioned prison raid.
The police are said to be investigating the origin of some cell phones recently confiscated, to determine whether they are linked to the robberies at two telecoms store just days after the raid.