50 inmates moved as PoS Prison closure begins

The de­com­mis­sion­ing of the Port-of-Spain Prison is now un­der­way, with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 in­mates al­ready trans­ferred to fa­cil­i­ties at Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, as au­thor­i­ties be­gin a phased shut­down aimed at clos­ing the his­toric prison by De­cem­ber.

A prison source told Guardian Me­dia that the trans­fers took place over the past week, mark­ing the first stage of a process that will ul­ti­mate­ly re­lo­cate the fa­cil­i­ty’s en­tire in­mate pop­u­la­tion.

Be­fore the ex­er­cise be­gan, the Fred­er­ick Street prison housed just over 500 in­mates, in­clud­ing more than 300 re­mand pris­on­ers. The pop­u­la­tion com­pris­es re­mand in­mates await­ing tri­al, con­vict­ed pris­on­ers serv­ing sen­tences, and con­demned in­mates on death row.