New UNC Senator laments tragedy of T&T prison system

Opposition Senator Verna St Rose Greaves made an emotional appeal to government Tuesday to improve prison conditions in Trinidad and Tobago as part of a strategy for dealing with crime.

In her maiden speech in the Upper House, St Rose Greaves spoke about the country's high crime rate and in particular the recent murder of four members of one family.

“When they rolled those four coffins out, it rocked me to my core. So if I cry, I apologise but I cry for the nation as we have ignored our responsibilities,” St Rose Greaves said in her contribution to the debate on the Prison Amendment Bill.

She provided graphic imagery of life inside prisons and told the Senate the legislation is vague and doesn't address the reality in the prison system because "prison is not at the top of our list of priorities and urgencies.”

St Rose-Greaves said she understands the lack public sympathy for prisoners and prison conditions, but finds it difficult to understand the Government’s lack of concern and commitment to prison reform, which is linked to crime reduction. She expressed deep concerns over the state of prisons in Trinidad and Tobago.

"Our prisons are overrun by illicit, illegal underground activity inclusive of sex, cellphones, drugs and other contraband brought into the prison by any means necessary," she said.

She said the offshore prison at Carrera Island prison lacks a water system and prisoners empty buckets of raw faeces into the sea daily through a hole in the prison wall, which she said they also use as a toilet.

“Grown men and women without sanitary facilities are forced to defecate in the presence of fellow prisoners without privacy, into bottles, plastic bags and on paper to be poured into a plastic bucket...and we talk about human rights and urgency and restorative justice,” she stated.

She described conditions where inmates are packed "like sardines" in hammocks and on cardboard on the ground and with the years-old stench of urine in the concrete, noting that the conditions present ideal conditions for disease.

And the Senator also spoke about the fear of sexual attacks, especially noting the difficulty that gays and lesbians face.