Maximilian Ciantar’s face has been repeatedly linked to notoriety ever since he ran over twin girls in Attard.
With help each inmate should get the chance to reform
The 21-year-old from Marsa just cannot seem to stay away from court despite serving a 16 months in jail for the Attard accident.
Last year he was caught driving in breach of a court order and while facing court proceedings threatened journalists who were reporting his case.
But the saga did not end there. Last Friday Mr Ciantar was arrested by the police in possession of heroin while visiting his child at Mater Dei Hospital.
Mr Ciantar was yesterday appeared in court to face drug charges (he was fined after pleading guilty, see separate story) but this latest incident has left many wondering why some people simply hop from one problem to another.
The comments board accompanying the story reporting Mr Ciantar’s arrest on timesofmalta.com was flooded with contributions demanding stiffer jail terms for people who persistently return to crime.
Others asked whether prison provided inmates with the help needed to change their lives. Finding answers is not easy but George Busuttil, who heads the prisoner welfare organisation, Mid-Dlam għad-Dawl, believes people who continuously relapse are symptomatic of a failed penitentiary system.
“There is no correction in prison and it is simply not working,” Mr Busuttil said, admitting that he knew of at least two individuals who were in and out of prison at least 30 times.
Rehabilitation will probably not work with everyone, he said, but insisted prisoners had to be talked to and understood.
“With the help of professionals each inmate should be given the chance to reform,” Mr Busuttil said.
Understanding inmates also means coming to terms with the underlying social and psychological conditions that may influence their behaviour according to Charles Miceli, the head of the Prison Inmates Programme, a drug rehabilitation service run by Caritas. While society may clamour for tougher prison sentences, in many cases the risk of relapse for inmates is very high unless they are helped, he added.
“Drug taking is already a condition that makes an individual prone to relapsing and this is made worse by underlying social and psychological conditions.” The underlying conditions have to be tackled first and in a serious manner by professionals, Mr Miceli said.
He believes the new parole legislation, which makes provision for inmate profiling, must provide clinical and personality assessments of prisoners that would contribute to the understanding of an individual’s background.
“While people have to pay for their misdeeds it is useless sending them to prison without a proper rehabilitation programme because all they will be doing is, for some time, worrying prison warders rather than society.”
Malta has one of the highest rates of repeat offenders in the EU and during the parliamentary debate on parole last year it emerged that 60 per cent of residents at the Corradino Correctional Facility committed repeated crimes.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com