AND JENSEN LA VENDE

Following the murders of two prison officers within a few days of each other, the president of the Prison Officers Association (POA) Ceron Richards has called for a meeting with the Prime Minister.

Richards was speaking during a press conference at the association's office in Arouca.

General secretary of the association Lester Walcott has said prison officers are refusing to work in the Wayne Jackson Building (building 13) at the Maximum Security Prison in Arouca as inmates have threatened 13 more killings before Christmas unless they are moved from building 13.

He said inmates were promising to kill an officer a week.

Prison officer Trevor Serette was killed on Friday at his fruit stall in Valencia and prison officer Nigel Jones was gunned down in front of his daughter at the Fyzabad taxi stand in Siparia on Monday. Both officers worked in building 13.

The Wayne Jackson Building, named after a senior prisons officer murdered outside his home in 2018, is used to house the country's most high-profile inmates.

'Officers have expressed they are not going in building 13 and we agree with them,' said Richards. 'We are in absolute agreement with whatever action they take.'

Richards demanded a meeting with Dr Rowley to discuss recommendations to protect prison officers which, he said, they have been trying to have implemented for years.

'If the Prime Minister is responsible (and) empathetic, he will meet with the Prison Service. Officers are being gunned down with impunity in the streets of TT.

"We are not at war, prison officers are being slaughtered, because war would mean that there are people dying on both sides. Officers are being slaughtered in front of their families, in front of their kids.'

Richards said the murder of prison officers had been a prevailing issue for years, adding there was a lack of respect for law enforcement in the country.

'The Wayne Jackson Building has been at the centre of numerous controversies. Both inmates and officers have complained about that division.

'The way things are being operated in that building has to be revisited. Officers are losing their lives as a direct result of performing their duties there.'

He said there were on average 70 inmates and 100 rotating officers on various shifts working in the building.

Richards said the Ministry of National Security had failed prison officers over the years and they no longer had faith in the ministry.

He said they were not satisfied with the State's response over the years to killings of prison officers.

'This is an attack on our State, not just an attack on a human being. No one in the ministry seems to have the wherewithal to deal with it.

'We are not interested in the ministry. We are interested in one office, based on the power of that office and the responsibility that office has, to treat with this.'

Richards said the association would bring all its recommendat