CS understaffed: Officer

By ZEDAIAH KANAU
A RETIRING senior Correctional Service (CS) officer says that prison facilities throughout the country are understaffed and struggling to cope with the increasing number of prisoners.
Outgoing CS deputy commissioner Dennis Kuimbakul Piandi expressed this concern in his retirement speech during a farewell parade on Friday at the Bomana Training College.
Piandi said no matter how modern a (prison) facility was, there needed to be people present to operate and manage it.
“The universal ratio of corrections officers to prisoners is one officer to five prisoners,” he said.
“Today in PNG correctional institutions, the ratio is one correction officer to 70 or 80 prisoners while in very extreme circumstances, one warder can look after 100 prisoners.
“These scenarios include guards on duty in the compound, guards looking after prisoners in work parties and for movement of prisoners (transfers and court circuits),” Piandi said.
“Staff were mostly depleted while trying to accommodate activities in the management of the correctional service. This is one of my concerns and I want to see the Government seriously consider increasing manpower,” he said.
“After all, if you increase police manpower and improve the number of judges and magistrates, this will consequently increase the number of prisoners being produced.”
Piandi retired after serving 48 years with the CS.