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The Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) is cau­tion­ing against what it de­scribes as “broad-brush ac­cu­sa­tions” in the wake of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), stress­ing that the vast ma­jor­i­ty of prison of­fi­cers serve with in­tegri­ty and should not be un­fair­ly ma­ligned.

An SoE was de­clared on Ju­ly 18 af­ter Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro re­vealed in­tel­li­gence point­ing to a co­or­di­nat­ed and high­ly dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal net­work op­er­at­ing from with­in the prison sys­tem. Gue­var­ro said in­mates with gang con­nec­tions were us­ing smug­gled cell phones to com­mu­ni­cate via en­crypt­ed chan­nels and were ac­tive­ly plan­ning to as­sas­si­nate se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry, and em­ploy­ees at the state pros­e­cu­tion of­fice.

When asked on Thurs­day whether rogue law en­force­ment of­fi­cers were fa­cil­i­tat­ing these ac­tiv­i­ties, Gue­var­ro said deny­ing it would be a lie to the pub­lic. He not­ed that cell phones are found in cells al­most week­ly, sug­gest­ing in­ter­nal com­plic­i­ty.