Editorial

In a survey conducted by Mid-Dlam Għad-Dawl, the NGO working for the rights of prisoners at the Corradino Correctional Facility, it was found that more than one in two prisoners released from jail is likely to return behind bars. Fifty-six per cent of prisoners said they had been to prison more than once.

What made the results of the survey so disconcerting, however, was the picture it painted of the lack of preparation by prisoners for their return to society at the end of their sentence. Almost 65 per cent said they were not being prepared for re-integration into society. Just under half said they did absolutely nothing during their jail term and more than half that they were given no chance to take part in vocational courses.

Fr Mark Montebello, a doughty fighter for prisoners' rights, concluded that the correctional facilities were severely lacking in rehabilitation programmes. In his view, prisoners there were regressing, rather than improving and this was detrimental to society.

Some people will always believe that harsh punishment deters crime. The more enlightened will argue that criminals may be deterred from further crime by being given the means by which to make an honest living on release and sufficient self-esteem to convince them that they can do so.

Few people who have worked with prisoners believe that, however unpleasant the conditions and however tough the treatment, prison deters those who are determined on crime. Deterrence is more of a pious hope in the minds of those who live normal day-to-day lives than a practical reality. Fear of imprisonment may deter those who have a job, a home and a family but not those who have no hope of achieving or retaining any of these. Almost all prisoners at the Corradino Correctional Facility will be released one day. How they will behave then depends on how successfully they are rehabilitated back into society. Imprisonment under the conditions exposed by the survey is failing both its prisoners and the public that it is required to protect. Rehabilitation protects the public. Re-offending does not.

The aim of Corradino should be to protect the public by preventing re-offending. Its vision of what should be achieved there should be centred on the preparation of prisoners to return to society and not to re-offend. What is required is that prisoners are treated decently and humanely by staff without sacrificing good order and discipline. (The cynical references to increased drug-taking and criminality in the survey were disturbing). Every prisoner should be treated as an individual; each sentence as an individual case.

Links between the correctional facility and the wider community, including firms willing to bring skills training into prison, should be fostered. Above all, the need to ensure access to - and encouragement of - programmes of education in preparation for future employment is vital. Every activity in prison should be designed around the resettlement and rehabilitation process.

The new Minister for Home Affairs said he was planning to introduce a number of measures for the benefit of both prisoners and the victims of crime. One hopes that he is far-seeing enough to recognise that central to such a policy should be the recognition that only through a structured programme of resettlement and rehabilitation will prisoners be enabled to return to society and not to re-offend.