Parole: A necessary reform

I believe that the White Paper on Restorative Justice published by the Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs is a very positive and much-needed development in the field of correctional services. Everybody knows that I am very critical of Lawrence Gonzi's Nationalist government but I also like to call a spade a spade and I think that positive initiatives by the PN government should be encouraged and praised.

The concept of restorative justice is based on three main principles: the sanction of behaviour, which is harmful to society and the subsequent re-establishment of order in society; the need to protect the interests of the victims of crime and provide them with compensation for the wrongs suffered by them; the rehabilitation of delinquents and their reintegration in society as reformed persons and law-abiding citizens.

All these principles are catered for in the White Paper published. The most innovative change will be the introduction of parole. One has to keep in mind that people change. Criminals too can be helped to change their erroneous ways through a system of rehabilitation services within the Corradino Correctional Facility. Once a reformed criminal shows that he/she is genuine in his/her attempt to start a new and more socially-productive life, then the time would be ripe for releasing such a rehabilitated individual back into society under a set of stringent conditions.

It is important to stress the term "stringent conditions". It is a fallacy to think that being released on parole is the same as being released after serving one's sentence. The person released on parole will be passing though a test, a test that examines whether he/she has really reformed. At the slightest infringement of the conditions laid upon the parolee, that is, returning home after stipulated hours, he/she will be putting at risk his/her freedom from incarceration.

Furthermore, the whole process of being released on parole is very thorough and detailed as well as being designed to protect the interests of society as a whole. Citizens should have their minds at rest that any person regarded as a risk to society, a risk to the victim/s of his crime/s, etc., will surely not be released on parole.

I was recently participating in a radio programme where this theme of "parole" was being discussed. I was amazed at the misinformed impressions many people have of how the parole system works. Some people were already visualising criminals running around the streets raping people and others murdering innocent people in dark corners! Come on, this is just imagination run riot! Persons who are a risk to society will remain behind the high walls of Corradino.

It is in society's interest to have criminals rehabilitated and the parole system will cut down on the high level of recidivism in Malta because genuinely-reformed people are much less likely to re-offend. One should also point out that the setting up of the Probation Service Victim Support Unit is another positive development because this unit will aid in the mediation process between the offender and his/her victims and will initiate the process by which the former will compensate the latter for the wrongs inflicted upon them.

Another positive aspect of the White Paper is the importance given to community service orders where the offender is punished for his/her transgression not by being incarcerated but by providing a certain amount of time to carry out works of service to his/her community, perhaps even to his/her victims.

I have stressed the importance of rehabilitation. The White Paper envisages enhancing the present educational programmes at Corradino Correctional Facility. This would include helping reformed criminals to obtain their school-leaving certificate, providing an Mcast-type foundation course and increasing provision of the Employment and Training Corporation training programmes. The basis for all this is already available. Suffice to say that, recently, an inmate managed to pass all modules of the European Computer Driving Licence Certificate (ECDL) by studying at Corradino and being coached by a computer teacher and then sitting for his ECDL examinations at the ETC's head office. Another inmate will also, hopefully, soon reach this goal.

To conclude, the introduction of parole will be a very positive development. What remains to be done is to work out the details: when will parole be granted, after serving one-third or one-half of the sentence? It is in your interests and mine, as taxpayers, to have criminals reformed. It costs around €51 daily to keep an individual incarcerated. At the end of this February there were 455 inmates at Corradino Correctional Facility.

Do you know how much that costs the state? The staggering amount of €8,469,825 yearly! It just doesn't make sense. Yes, we definitely need rehabilitation and parole.