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Pres­i­dent of the Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion Ger­ard Gor­don is again rais­ing the is­sue of space at the coun­try’s pris­ons as de­tainees un­der the State of Emer­gency in­crease al­most dai­ly.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Gor­don said that de­spite the short­com­ings at the pris­ons, of­fi­cers must make the most of what they have.

“The is­sue of ac­com­mo­da­tion, space, in­fra­struc­ture al­low­ing for the safe keep­ing of not on­ly de­tainees, but pris­on­ers al­ways is a chal­lenge for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice. It’s no se­cret that we con­tin­ue to op­er­ate in fa­cil­i­ties that some have out­lived their use­ful­ness, oth­ers are in a hor­ren­dous state of dis­re­pair due to lack of main­te­nance and up­keep, but we re­main in the un­en­vi­able po­si­tion that we are un­able to say no.”