Review of parole eligibility dates

Labour MP Chris Cardona has called on the government to reconsider the parameters that need to be satisfied for an offender to be granted parole.

He was speaking during the debate on second reading of the Restorative Justice Bill, which fixes the parole eligibility date of a prisoner serving a sentence for a term between one and two years at 33 per cent of the term of imprisonment and those servicing a term of between two and seven years at 50 per cent. A prisoner serving more than seven years shall be eligible for parole after having served 58 per cent of his term of imprisonment. Offenders serving a sentence of less than a year would not be eligible for parole.

Dr Cardona suggested that these percentages be reduced.

He said the Bill was aimed at weakening criminality while strengthening legislation. The Labour Party in government had adopted the first measures towards restorative justice in 1958, when then Justice Minister Ġużè Cassar introduced the Probation Act.

Currently, certain offences were punishable with community service. One should monitor and control criminality for offenders to reintegrate in society. Nevertheless, the legislator took a strong stand against drug trafficking, money laundering and paedophilia.

He augured that the Bill was not intentioned to eliminate evident problems in prison, such as overcrowding and lack of finances. It had also become a place of drug trafficking.

The government was not interested in solving these problems and should not camouflage these problems by introducing parole. Dr Cardona said it would have been better if the government had reformed the prison facility and strengthened it by providing good resources. Lawyers, the police and the prison’s management had complained that the situation was out of control.

Moreover, no one in government had declared the sum that would be required to implement the Bill, which he reckoned would be quite substantial.

The present penal structure would not be able to support the new addition, and he questioned the reason why the government was introducing parole without first trying to solve the problems in Malta’s criminal system. Why was not the government ready to propose changes coupled with the introduction of the Bill? The proposed reform was a courageous one on the government’s part, but the present criminal system could not sustain it.

Dr Cardona said that prisoners needed the system to be strong from the date of the sentence, in order for them to reform and change into better persons to give something back to society. Boredom while in prison would only lead to further problems.

He suggested the government test the parole system over a period of two or three years. If it failed, it would only be the government’s fault. Parole was needed because even if prisoners could now make use of remission they were being sent back into society without being properly reformed. It was important that prisoners did not become worse criminals while in prison, Dr Cardona said.