A glaring lack of trained prison guard personnel and staff absenteeism have been structural problems at the prison in Point Blanche for decades. These problems were particularly exposed during the riots in May of last year when the inmates took matters into their own hands and set a number of cells on fire. Prison management had to call in the assistance of a considerable number of the uniformed forces on the island. St. Maarten even requested assistance from her sister islands Curacao and Aruba.
Against that background, the recent public concern about an agreement to temporarily bring in Surinamese prison guards is uncalled for. True, decisions of government should always be measured and analysed for their contribution to actually solve problems in hand. So when these decisions appear to do just that, criticism for criticism sake becomes moot.
Indeed, after Minister of Justice Nathalie Tackling’s explanation at Wednesday’s Council of Minister’s press briefing, there is every reason to give the government the benefit of the doubt to follow the chosen path. She even allayed the police union NAPB’s concerns about where the money is coming from to pay for the deployment of Surinamese personnel.
We do foresee two potential problems. In the first place, without a proper cultural sensitisation programme, these prison guards might soon run into avoidable problems with the inmates. Lost in translation conversations because of a proper understanding of local slang or North Caribbean English could quickly escalate.
And secondly, there is also the question of how to motivate local workers to join the prison guards corps. Tackling has assured the general public that the deployment of Surinamese prison guards will only be temporary to stabilise the security situation at the prison, while a recruitment programme is launched to attract and train local personnel. But who wants to join any of the uniformed services after all the publicly aired grievances by justice personnel about their lack of national decrees, promotions and salary issues? Problems to quickly attract sufficient reinforcements might then lead to what some already expect to be a long-term stay of foreign personnel.
Ultimately, the measure should be judged not only by its ability to restore short-term stability, but by whether it contributes to a durable solution that prevents the same vulnerabilities from recurring in the future.
