Gail Alexan­der and

Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj has warned that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pris­ons are “a sit­ting time bomb” as the Pro­ba­tion of Of­fend­ers Amend­ment Bill was passed unan­i­mous­ly in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, in­tro­duc­ing a hy­brid sys­tem of jail time and pro­ba­tion amid se­vere over­crowd­ing.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MP Kei­th Scot­land said the Op­po­si­tion would sup­port the bill but pro­posed amend­ments, ar­gu­ing that it af­fects peo­ple’s lib­er­ty.