Dear Editor,
The employees of the St. Maarten Points Blanche prison have voiced their concerns on the Parliamentary public meeting #31, dated May 29, 2019. According to the committee representing the workers of the prison, the parliamentarians were distributing misinformation about the prison in the public meeting.
We have the following concerns:
- Personnel matters and working conditions.
- Making publicly incorrect accusations and insinuations on worker(s) functioning in high-ranking positions, namely, “mentioning that firearm(s) was/were brought into the prison under their supervision which caused the death of an inmate.”
- Making wrongful and/or misleading announcements/statements such as endangering the lives of prison personnel.
- Changes of prison management St. Maarten.
According to the committee members who have the mandate from personnel of the house of detention, we have already sent 2 letters to the house of Parliament requesting a meeting to inform and clarify the misinformation existing in the Parliament.
We must not forget that the members of parliament are the representatives of the people of St. Maarten, and not a selected person or persons. We, the workers of the prison, feel ourselves not represented in parliament by the elected members of parliament.
We are of the opinion that the parliament members should research matters first, ask questions to correctly inform the people in society. We believe that members of parliament should not engage in personal attacks and innuendos against any prison official or anyone in this society, thereby putting the prison and its workers in a negative light. This is in our opinion very unprofessional and of minimal standard.
The committee is requesting a meeting with the house of parliament to bring the truth on the situation at the house of detention forward. In this meeting, they also wish to elaborate on a letter sent to the House of Parliament dated June 1, 2019.
St. Maarten House of Detention
