It is expected that the Parole Re-entry Steering Committee will complete in six month its report on a new parole system. Last month, the government had a ceremonial signing with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for a $20 million citizens security loan. Minister of National Security Dr. Bernard Nottage said during the signing that $4.5 million would go toward reducing crime and $350,000 toward the implementation of the parole and probation program.
Nottage has previously stated that legislation for the parole system is expected by the end of the year. This is important and is part of a wider shift in state policy toward corrections and rehabilitation, rather than mere incarceration.
Of the 1,600 people housed at the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services, formerly referred to as Her Majesty's Prisons, approximately 45 percent (720) are on remand. The Ministry of National Security estimates 95 percent of incarcerated criminals are expected to re-enter society.
In this context it is critical to rehabilitate these men and women - mostly men - if we are to get a handle on our crime problem. Many come from dysfunctional homes where there was no father present. Many dropped out of school and are illiterate and innumerate.
Many abuse drugs and have mood and personality disorders. If they are not helped, if there is no intervention to break the cycle of dysfunction that is their lives, they will reoffend. Treating them with more brutality, such as they grew up under in our violent inner-city communities, will make them more likely to reoffend in more heinous and debased ways.
"This effort will not successfully be achieved without the buy-in of the inmates, their families, the correctional officers, stakeholders and the wider community," said Paul Farquharson, a retired commissioner of police and chairman of the Parole Re-entry Steering Committee.
In fairness to the prison many skills training programs exist already. We have been moving away from the most brutal notion of prison for some time. This parole effort is a reaffirmation of the slow state shift in the right direction.
"Our work will be very much focused on facilitating rehabilitation," said committee deputy co-chairman Drexel Gomez said.
"That will include the approach to the inmates and the various programs that will be offered to teach and to equip the persons in the prison.
"We will utilize what is there already and introduce, hopefully, some new ones. We intend it will be seen not only [by] the inmates but also the general public, that considered effort is being made to help correct the pattern of behavior of those inmates who have been convicted by the court."
Prisoners who show willingness to leave behind their past ways should be embraced by the community. Companies that have the ability should give a chance to the genuinely reformed. Those who have the time and skills should offer themselves as trainers to the corrections department.
The government must also, as a priority, build a new maximum security prison. There has long been an overcrowding problem at the current facility, along with inadequate plumbing. Continued efforts to train prison guards in new techniques of managing prisoners, minimizing the use of force, should also be part of the reform effort.
In these times of increased violence we must resist the urge to think that more violence and brutality will bring us peace. They won't. We have to work on helping to restore our broken people, and to prevent our young people from going down the route of crime and violence. Efforts such as this parole system are a step in the right direction.
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