The head of the Prison Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) says chron­ic staffing short­ages with­in the prison sys­tem are un­der­min­ing of­fi­cers' abil­i­ty to pre­vent vi­o­lence and pro­tect in­mates, fol­low­ing the killing of a pris­on­er at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP), Arou­ca.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day af­ter the death of 48-year-old Christo­pher Ban­field, POA pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don de­scribed the in­ci­dent as trag­ic and said in­ad­e­quate man­pow­er con­tin­ues to af­fect se­cu­ri­ty across prison fa­cil­i­ties.

Ban­field was found ly­ing on the floor of his cell around 5.30 am on Tues­day by a prison of­fi­cer con­duct­ing rou­tine checks. In­ves­ti­ga­tors lat­er learned he had been beat­en dur­ing an al­ter­ca­tion with an­oth­er in­mate on Mon­day night and sus­tained se­vere in­juries to his head and face. He was pro­nounced dead short­ly af­ter be­ing tak­en to the prison in­fir­mary.