The Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) is urg­ing cau­tion over Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s pro­pos­al to use con­vict­ed in­mates sen­tenced to hard labour to as­sist with pub­lic space main­te­nance un­der the Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces (NPUPS), say­ing the move must be sup­port­ed by prop­er se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures, staffing and re­sources be­fore it is im­ple­ment­ed.

The As­so­ci­a­tion said it recog­nis­es the val­ue of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion through struc­tured work pro­grammes but warned that de­ploy­ing in­mates out­side cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties to clean com­mu­ni­ties, cut grass and main­tain pub­lic ar­eas re­quires care­ful plan­ning and strict safe­guards.

Alexan­der an­nounced on Tues­day that the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to tap what he de­scribed as “the largest labour force in the na­tion” by us­ing prison in­mates as part of ef­forts to ad­dress pub­lic main­te­nance is­sues fol­low­ing the clo­sure of the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP).