Al­though hav­ing full con­fi­dence in the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice Sen­a­tor Moore, In­spec­tor of Pris­ons Daniel Khan is some­what wor­ried that his first an­nu­al re­port on the ad­verse con­di­tions in the prison sys­tem may end up 30 years lat­er, moth­balled in some gov­ern­ment of­fice.That was the fate of a re­port pre­pared 33 years ago by a com­mis­sion of en­quiry chaired by for­mer An­gli­can Bish­op the Rt Rev Clive Ab­du­lah in­to the coun­try's prison sys­tem.

Khan, an at­tor­ney, is ex­treme­ly con­cerned about the ad­verse con­di­tions af­fect­ing in­mates and agrees with Pres­i­dent Car­mona that the au­thor­i­ties must think out of the box on the ques­tion of prison re­form and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of ex-pris­on­ers.

Q: Mr Khan, for­mer Bish­op of T&T the Rt Rev Clive Ormis­ton Ab­du­lah said 33 years ago con­di­tions at the na­tion's pris­ons were vir­tu­al hell holes. Is that the sta­tus quo to­day?

A: (In his Port-of-Spain cham­bers Thurs­day af­ter­noon) Well, this phrase al­so came out from a 2008 judg­ment de­liv­ered by Madam Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in, where she so de­scribed the con­di­tions at the Port-of-Spain pris­ons, and she said some­thing very alarm­ing: that the atroc­i­ties of the slave trade as well as the in­den­ture­ship are well known to us and have been part of our his­to­ry. Those con­di­tions, she added, were not so dif­fer­ent from those ex­pe­ri­enced by our fore­fa­thers.

Be­fore go­ing fur­ther, what are your ba­sic du­ties as In­spec­tor of Pris­ons? Do you go around mak­ing sure the in­mates are well placed, cosy and com­fort­able in their cells?

(Half smil­ing) I con­sid­er my main du­ty in­cludes the writ­ing of an an­nu­al re­port. It is re­quired that I make rec­om­men­da­tions for the smooth run­ning of the pris­ons such as their con­di­tions, pris­on­ers' rights, prison of­fi­cers' con­cerns, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion–and those are the ex­pect­ed goals a prison in­spec­tor can achieve.

(Flip­ping through his 500-page doc­u­ment: he ex­plains that he vis­its the six pris­ons every month, fol­lows up se­ri­ous com­plaints such as al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct, aju­di­cate over dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings, etc.)

Do you have the pow­er to dis­ci­pline pris­on­ers and prison of­fi­cers?

I can pun­ish pris­on­ers by tak­ing away their re­mis­sions, mean­ing they would have to serve longer sen­tences, and I even have the pow­er to dis­miss the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons. Such au­thor­i­ty is con­tained in the 1943 Prison Rules, that the in­spec­tor can rec­om­mend the dis­missal of the com­mis­sion­er.

So you could get up one morn­ing and send Mr Mar­tinez home?

(Laugh­ing) Tech­ni­cal­ly you are cor­rect, but every­thing has to be done with­in the con­fines of the rules.

Mr Khan, are you sat­is­fied with the gen­er­al con­di­tions at those in­sti­tu­tions to­day?

No. I don't think that any­one in his or her right mind and ex­posed to those con­di­tions could say they are pleased. Even if you are the vic­tim of the most grue­some crime and you un­der­stand the im­por­tance of the prison you will not be pleased, and im­prov­ing con­di­tions will help in re­duc­ing crime.

Prison con­di­tions could help to re­duce crime out­side the prison walls?

(Em­phat­i­cal­ly) Yes. I know this is a very hard sell and it might be para­dox­i­cal to your read­ers, Mr Raphael, and by go­ing easy on the crim­i­nals what you have to un­der­stand is that 98 per cent of all pris­on­ers are re­leased back in­to so­ci­ety, with the oth­er two per cent there for the rest of their lives.

In 2012 it was record­ed that 74 per cent, that is three quar­ters of them, re­turned to the pris­ons in three to five years. They are re-of­fend­ing, and we need to fo­cus more on re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes and treat­ing them in a man­ner where they can re­spect them­selves, their fel­low cit­i­zens and to re­spect the law.His Ex­cel­len­cy Pres­i­dent Car­mona said in his in­au­gur­al speech the crimer­ate will in­crease and be out of con­trol if there is not a gen­uine out-of-the-box in­ter­ven­tion.

Are you see­ing that kind of in­ter­ven­tion since you took up this po­si­tion about one year ago?

Well, the prison sys­tem and in­vest­ment in the sys­tem is re­al­ly a re­flec­tion of the pub­lic opin­ion: the politi­cians are not go­ing to in­vest in the sys­tem where vot­ers do not want prison re­form.There are many ad­mirable non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions who vol­un­teer do­ing prison so­cial work and I will call that a kind of out-of-the-box in­ter­ven­tion, but it is not enough.

Mr Khan, do you be­lieve the are some pris­on­ers who re­al­ly do not want to be re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed?

Yes, but I be­lieve every­one can be re­formed and some crim­i­nals, be­cause of what­ev­er it is to cause them to com­mit crimes, it would be much hard­er to re­form them.Now, this is a very use­ful and spir­i­tu­al be­lief that I have as a young hu­man­i­tar­i­an and hope­ful in the beau­ty of mankind.

Mr Khan, as In­spec­tor of Pris­ons how do you feel that big, hard­back men are do­ing their num­bers in buck­ets in our pris­ons, es­pe­cial­ly in the con­text of prison re­form, and that we are no longer liv­ing in the so called Dark Age?

The re­port I sub­mit­ted in De­cem­ber 2012 has 100 pages ded­i­cat­ed to con­di­tions and how those can be im­proved.The Port-of-Spain Prison has to be "eu­thanised" and shut down. It is the on­ly hu­man­i­tar­i­an thing to do.When you do not have an an­nu­al re­port for the longest while and the pow­ers that be are not be­ing in­formed of those ad­verse con­di­tions and the vot­ers do not care for them, the ad­verse con­di­tions would re­main as they are.

Noth­ing is be­ing done on your re­port as yet. Do you think it is be­ing pi­geon­holed?

I wouldn't say so be­cause just like the Ryan Re­port, it has to be con­sid­ered by the Gov­ern­ment be­fore it is made pub­lic, and we must give them some time to con­sid­er it. The Jus­tice Min­is­ter seems to be very se­ri­ous about prison re­form, and is the first min­is­ter to firm­ly say that Car­rera will be shut down.

That rec­om­men­da­tion was first made by the Ab­du­lah com­mis­sion of en­quiry 33 years ago...

Yes, that is true, but as I said, Sen­a­tor Moore was the first min­is­ter to make a de­fin­i­tive state­ment on clos­ing down that fa­cil­i­ty, a rec­om­men­da­tion which I too have made in my re­port, be­cause it is too ex­pen­sive to run it and one of the out­ra­geous month­ly ex­pen­di­tures is the sup­ping of wa­ter month­ly at a cost of $20,000.

Is Car­rera a hell hole?

I wouldn't say so, and I would say the pri­or­i­ty should be to close down the Port-of-Spain prison, be­cause Madam Jus­tice Gob­in has said it is a hell hole.

Mr Khan, how op­ti­mistic are you to­day that things will change now rather than lat­er?

My moods do not change just like that, and speak­ing to you I feel op­ti­mistic, be­cause I know that your read­ers would be­come aware of the prob­lems and hope­ful­ly of their im­por­tance, and if they do not agree with my po­si­tions on it, will en­gage in pub­lic de­bate.When things get to that stage (in the pub­lic do­main) and are raised by re­spon­si­ble me­dia, re­form is pos­si­ble. The pub­lic and ad­vo­cates will speak for it, against it, and it gets the at­ten­tion of those who have the abil­i­ty to make the change–the Gov­ern­ment.

But there are times when I read Bish­op Ab­du­lah's re­port done in 1980, and I am say­ing, well, all this hard work was ig­nored. And 30 years lat­er I am won­der­ing if my hard work will be ig­nored, too.But I am hope­ful that the nec­es­sary changes will come.

Mr Khan, with the use of cell phones to con­duct il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties in the pris­ons, one gets the im­pres­sion that it is per­fect­ly okay to use those in­stru­ments be­hind bars?

No. It is not per­mis­si­ble. Cell phones are banned and how they get them there is re­al­ly a se­cu­ri­ty is­sue, whether they smug­gle it, whether prison of­fi­cers are in­volved...the Ryan Re­port spoke about cor­rup­tion in the prison ser­vice and it is hard to weed out cor­rup­tion in these places, be­cause ser­vice­men will pro­tect their fel­low of­fi­cers.

I am not sure who told me this, but some­body con­nect­ed with the pris­ons ex­plained that 95 per cent of the calls are made for le­git­i­mate pur­pos­es and not to com­mit crimes.

I find it in­ex­plic­a­ble that they can as­cer­tain the types of calls be­ing made, but they can­not track down the cul­prits es­pe­cial­ly those in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Okay, Mr Raphael, that is their be­lief. But I don't think they would have an ac­cu­rate ac­count of the calls be­cause they do not mon­i­tor all of them.