Scissors, improvised weapons, ganja found at Camp Street Prison
A raid on the Georgetown Prison at Camp Street, conducted jointly by ranks of the Police Force and the Prison Service on Thursday, has resulted in the discovery of even more prohibited and contraband items.
Items seized include: 19 cellular phones; five phone chargers; one flash drive; fifteen cigarette lighters; two packs of cigarettes; five pairs of scissors; seven improvised weapons, and 774 grams of cannabis.
Thursday’s operation lasted for five hours and involved two senior officers and a total of 71 ranks. It came less than a month after a major find at the Lusignan Prison.
During the Lusignan Prison raid, razor blades, 17 phone chargers, 24 lighters, a quantity of wires, 8 metal spoons, 2 pairs of scissors, 1 plastic knife, 2 nail clips, a quantity of Ziplock bags, 6 bottles of pepper sauce, 1 pack of cards, 3 bottles of medicine, 4 bottles of oil with suspected cannabis seeds, 1 memory card, 3 mirrors
The contraband items found during Thursday’s raid at Camp Street Prison
and 1 wrist watch were discovered.
The smuggling of contraband items into prisons remains a perennial problem within the system. Authorities have been working assiduously to curb the practice, and these efforts have resulted in several prison officers being caught facilitating the illegal trade, which is said to be a “big business”.
In fact, back in July, Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels, had disclosed during a press conference that several prison officers had been relieved of their duties after they were found to be working in collusion with each other in order to facilitate the movement of suspected contraband into the Lusignan Prison Holding Bay area.
The Prison Director, further decrying the behaviour of such ranks, had said, “It is quite disturbing, it is quite embarrassing, to have to face these situations on a daily basis; but this is not a situation whereby the prison administration is failing to act. The reality of it is, despite we would do vetting and so forth, these prison officers are drawn from communities…and for some strange reason, despite they’re given their dos and don’ts, they allow themselves to be sucked into the financial gains that these activities can bring you.”
