Re­tired com­mis­sion­er of pris­ons Ger­ard Wil­son says he sup­ports the de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency as a mea­sure to dis­rupt gang net­works in prison, but be­lieves ro­bust se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems must be im­ple­ment­ed more con­sis­tent­ly.

Re­spond­ing to news that the TTPS rec­om­mend­ed the SoE based on in­tel­li­gence about a pur­port­ed plot by pris­on­ers to at­tack se­cu­ri­ty fig­ures, Wil­son said such a se­ri­ous de­vel­op­ment war­rant­ed a strong se­cu­ri­ty re­sponse.

Wil­son, who served as Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er from 2017 to 2020, said the smug­gling of con­tra­band, in­clud­ing mo­bile phones, to in­mates re­mained a long-stand­ing chal­lenge that re­quired con­tin­u­ous checks and bal­ances.