PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) - Inmates in Trinidad may soon be living in metal shipping containers in a bid to tackle prison overcrowding in the southern Caribbean nation, the top correctional official said Thursday.
Prisons Commissioner John Rougier said an undetermined number of 40-foot-long (12-meter) containers will be needed to temporarily lodge inmates, whose numbers are rising because of tougher bail laws, longer sentences and an escalating crime rate.
Rougier said carefully modified containers would serve as adequate housing until a new prison is built on a 100-acre (41-hectare) parcel in central Trinidad. He plans to recommend the idea to the national security minister, who would need to approve the lockup plan.
There is no intention to simply throw prisoners into the containers without properly preparing them for habitation,» Rougier told The Associated Press.
In recent years, specially converted cargo containers have been turned into temporary prisons to ease overcrowding problems in Australia and in some U.S. states, including Ohio.
Rougier said he got the idea after touring unspecified prisons in the United States.
More than 4,000 inmates are currently housed in Trinidad's eight prisons, although Rougier declined to identify the capacity of each facility.
Violent crime, including kidnappings for ransom, has been on the rise in oil- and gas-rich Trinidad, despite more than a decade of economic growth. The crime wave is blamed largely on drug and extortion gangs.
The president of the Caribbean country's Prison Officers Association, Michael Williams, said the group agrees with the plan in concept but wants to see the final proposal. |
