PREVENTATIVE technologies, raising of salaries and professionalising the Guyana Prison Service will have to be reviewed as ways to combat the incessant and rampant corruption occurring within the prisons which is fueling serious security breaches, according to Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan.

“It’s a big shame that these prison warders continue to be involved because it is obviously a conspiracy. Some of those guards seem to be incapable of seeing people throwing in illegal things, but it is a state of play in relation to how our culture is and we have to struggle it out to get better people, and better salaries,” Ramjattan told this publication while at Parliament on Monday.

Describing the warders involved in smuggling items into the prison as rogue elements, Ramjattan noted collusion with prisoners will always be a major security risk which can turn deadly.

He explained that although technology is expensive, he would propose scanners for all prisons.

Over the past few weeks, despite regular searches, prison wardens kept unearthing various forms of contraband, including cellular phones, marijuana and local wine, along with other illegalities.

Meanwhile, the acting Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels, had also issued a call to all prison warders and officers to desist from trafficking contraband into the prisons, while asking those who were guilty to understand the consequences as the law would take its course.

The prison director noted that getting rid of contraband in prison could not be a fight by a few and there was need for collective efforts.
“The well-established syndicates may think that they are safe and secure but they cannot be allowed to continue. We will continue our searches and those found to be colluding in trafficking contraband will have to answer to the law. We cannot compromise. While efforts are being made to improve our physical structures and improve the use of technology, for now, our reliance is on the human factor,” Samuels said.

Adding that the dangers of trafficking contraband in the prison environment also put the perpetrators and warders at risk, Samuels said. “Prison officers should not be putting their fellow officers at risk. What about our motto: ‘Together in Service?’ Trafficking in contraband at all locations is a matter of grave concern, but at the Mazaruni Prison, which is a maximum security prison, it is worse because of the extent of the collusion that is needed for many contraband items to get into the prison.”

“Make no mistake about it, our security is at risk when we allow these items in. Taking into account the quantity of these prohibited items and the locations where some of the items are discovered, it stretches the imagination that these items got into the prison only by being trafficked by prisoners using their bodies to conceal same,” Samuels said.