Prison boss Lieutenant-Colonel John Nurse yesterday dismissed claims of a tense environment at Her Majesty’s Prisons Dodds and instead saluted the on-the-job officers.
He commended the men and women in the midst of swirling reports about morale being low, threats of lawsuits and claims of prisoners on edge.
He said the mere fact that 70 of the officers who were in quarantine responded to the call of duty under the circumstances of an outbreak at the prison was testimony to the morale at the prison.
Nurse, speaking at a press conference on the premises of the penal institution in St Philip said: “Morale was always high. We were always smiling and getting down to our task. The mere fact that we have some 70 people who responded to the call immediately . . . is testament to that morale.”
Major Cedric Proverbs of the Barbados Defence Force (BDF), who was called to lead the prison for the 15 days while Nurse was in quarantine, said even the prisoners “got it” though some malicious communication went out via social media.
He said the BDF was able to add “psycho-social intervention operatives” into the prison network and even when the sister and the grandmother of two inmates died, what was expected to be a tense period was eased through counselling and talking with inmates. The prisoners were allowed to contact their families, he added.
“But at the end of the day they are human and they think that they want what is best for them and we try to treat them as human,” Proverbs said of the circulating social media voice notes claiming ill treatment at the prison. (AC)
