Concluding that the senior prison staff apparently lack the ability to negotiate with aggressive prisoners, the Prison Commission of Inquiry (CoI) has recommended that there be a structured training programme with special courses that will see this deficiency being addressed.
The 104-page final report, which was handed over to President David Granger last month but not yet made publicly available, also addressed the issue of staff shortage and urged that the current complement be immediately increased. The CoI was done following the deaths of 17 inmates during unrest and fire at the Camp Street prison on March 3. It found that the prisoners were mostly responsible for the deaths but also highlighted a number of institutional deficiencies.
“There appears to be an apparent lack of negotiating skills by senior administrators to quell prisoners’ aggressive behaviour. The argument can also be made that the prisoners were very enraged and reasoning seemed impossible and that things happened so fast that
