– US correctional experts Most of the illegal articles found in the prison are taken in by staff members.This is the view of two retired correctional officers from the United States of America, who are winding down a training programme for prison officers on ethical dilemmas.Retired US correctional officers Carlyle Holder (left) and Robert Matthews are in Guyana to conduct training for prison officers on ethical dilemma.The programme comes at a time when local prison officials have been increasingly unearthingcontraband substances within the prison, including drugs and weapons.In some cases, these items are smuggled in by the prisoners themselves, while the authorities have caught staff members trying to take in drugs in some of the most ingenuous ways.Carlyle Holder, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Florida-based Correctional Management and Communications Group, has 27 years experience in the United States correctional system, including a top post at the country’s largest federal prison before his retirement in January this year.His colleague, Robert Matthews, who is also retired, spent 20 years in the US federal prison system, including stints at Leavenworth, and the US Penitentiary in Atlanta.In an exclusive interview with this newspaper yesterday, the two retired prison experts said that their visit to Guyana stems from discussions with Director of Prisons, Dale Erskine,Jerseys NFL Wholesale, during which their work in other Caribbean countries, such as St. Lucia, was highlighted.“They were having a lot of issues with staff bringing in stuff for the inmates and things like that. Mr. Erskine took it to his ministry, and it was decided that they wanted us to come and do the same here,” said Holder, who is Trinidadian by birth.Both experts have indicated that they are impressed with the staff of the local prison system, who they said were very interested in improving the system and transforming it to a more progressive operation.They both said that Guyana’s prison situation is not unique,Wholesale Authentic NFL Jerseys, and they will not be trying to impose anything from the system they are familiar with, but rather will craft programmes that are better? suited to Guyana’s criminal justice system.“We have the same problems like you have. We teach ethics in the United States and we have programmes like this for staff in the federal prison system on a regular basis. At least once a year they go through mandatory ethics training,” Holder explained.He said that, firstly, prison officers must be aware of the ethics problem, so that they will be better able to deal with it.“What it really boils down to is doing the right thing,” he added.There are reports that a local prisoner could get almost anything illegal within the facility.These illegal items are either smuggled in through the gate, although the administration has installed an x-ray scanner, or it is thrown over the prison walls, such as with the case of a firearm recently.The latter has prompted the administration to mount guards around the main prison in Georgetown to deter this kind of activity.Recently, an officer was caught trying to smuggle marijuana into the prison.Holder pointed out that although some prison officers are guilty of facilitating the entry of contraband goods into the prison, this represents a small percentage of the staff.“What happens is the good people look the other way,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, and what we have to get them to do is not look the other way, but make reports. Let’s get rid of the few bad apples that make the agency appear to be corrupted with a lot of dirty staff. This training will probably remove some of that wall of silence, so that people will realize that if you look the other way, you are just as guilty as the person that’s doing it,” he said.He described contraband items as things that should not be in the prison, including drugs and cell phones.“Contraband can be anything that is unauthorized. In our business, if you give an inmate a stick of gum and it is not authorized, it’s the beginning of something. Although it’s small and may have no significance in what we do, once you give him that one illegal piece, it could move from there to a candy, then to drugs, and then a cell phone,” the prison expert explained.Unlike in the United States of America, prisoners in Guyana get more opportunities to interact with the public whenever they are on outdoor duties.The prison experts agreed that this increases the opportunities for prohibited items to be smuggled into the facility.A section of the local prison officers listen to US prison expert Carlyle Holder during one of the training sessions.According to Robert Matthews, who was also a United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, most of the prisoners in the United States som