AN INVESTIGATION is under way to determine how prisoners at the General Penitentiary, Tower Street, central Kingston, came to have had dynamite which they used in an abortive bid to escape from the prison on Saturday.
Kern Spencer, Parliamentary Secretary for National Security, toured the prison yesterday and said all 1,589 prisoners were accounted for.
"The matter is being dealt with in great urgency," Senator Spencer said.
He said a "thorough investigation" was being undertaken and that the perpetrators would be brought to justice. The prison, he added, was being searched to determine whether there were additional explosives or any other illegal items there.
Senator Spencer toured the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre (General Penitentiary) in the absence of Dr. Peter Phillips, National Security Minister, who is overseas on Government business. The senator is to recommend to the minister, ways of improving security at the island's prisons. These, he said, include mounting security cameras to cover the entire exterior of the prisons and the use of cellular phone jammers.
Although cellular phones are banned in prisons, they often surface there, and are used by prisoners to communicate among themselves and with their cronies on the outside.
Senator Spencer commended members of the security forces and warders whose swift action, he said, had averted a potential disaster.
After the explosion, which occurred about 3 p.m., dozens of prisoners converged on the hole caused by the explosion in a frantic bid to escape, but it was not large enough to allow them exit, and the security forces restored order quickly.
