THE NEW HMS Prisons at Dodds should have additional staff by the end of this financial year.

That was revealed by acting Superintendent of Prisons Lieutenant Colonel John Nurse, after a tour of the new facilities by Minister of Attorney-General Home Affairs Freundel Stuart and
his delegation yesterday.

Nurse said his complement, which included civilians, was 289 and needed to be 329. He said the 30 officers who recently graduated would be filtered into the system as soon as the promotional exams were completed.

While Stuart acknowledged that manpower was a concern, he said: "This is an issue that has to be treated incrementally. It cannot be a once for all assault on the issue of manpower; that is an issue that is linked to finance and the constraints imposed by finance . . . . We will give all the support
we can in that regard."

The acting superintendent said it was "much easier" to manage the day-to-day challenges at the more purpose-built rehabilitative facility at Dodds.

Nurse said the staff was more focussed towards the "end game" and based on the behaviour of both inmates and staff, the morale was "significantly different" from that at Glendairy and Harrison Point.

He reported that the incidents of prisoners being violent towards staff were "almost non-existent" in the new facility and that work was continuing on all the areas that needed emphasis.

He was pleased that there were no reports of contraband being introduced into the facility to date, and assured the tour party that systems were in place to detect such.

"We are serious in our intent to ensure that we do not slide into an environment that we had, let's say, at Glendairy. So we're going to be very strict, we're going to be very tough in our systems and our policies, especially as they relate to contraband and contraband introduction," Nurse stated.

On Monday the prison population stood at 1 030 with 997 males, 33 females and one baby girl. Twenty-six of the women are non-national, with less than a quarter of the males from outside of Barbados. (YB)