Prisons are about both protecting the public and rehabilitating offenders
After a prisoner allegedly murdered a girl while he was working at Cayman’s prison farm I set up an independent enquiry into the arrangements for prisoners working outside the prison. Yesterday I released the report (see http://ukincayman.gov/) done by a Caymanian lawyer, Orren Merren.
This was reassuring in that he found that prison arrangements were generally sound. He did however recommend closure of the farm. He also made a lot of other recommendations to increase the chances of rehabilitation of prisoners.
The first responsibility of prisons is to protect the public and therefore keep prisons secure. But if they don’t also provide the programmes that facilitate rehabilitation more members of the public will become victims of ex-prisoners who go on to commit further offences. Without the cooperation of the community, for example by providing employment, we can neither prevent young people starting out on a career of crime nor prevent ex-prisoners from re-offending.
Posted at 17:46 18 September 2009 by Stuart Jack | Comments[0]
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