Sweeping penal reform is on the way to match Government’s updating of Barbados’ criminal justice system.
Minister of Home Affairs and Information Gregory Nicholls said penal reform complemented the ongoing changes in the court system.
Addressing a National Crime Symposium on Wednesday, hosted by the Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit at Savannah Beach Club Hotel, Hastings, Christ Church, and attended by Minister of Legal Affairs and Criminal Justice Michael Lashley and former Attorney General and former Chief Justice Sir David Simmons, Nicholls outlined the upcoming changes and proposals.
Rehabilitation
“Michael deals with the criminal justice system, but I’m charged with the responsibility of dealing with the system after they go through the court system and how do we treat to persons who have been convicted by the courts. It is fitting that we are speaking about rehabilitation and reintegration into society and the work that we’re doing in Home Affairs in relation to the reform of the penal system in Barbados.
“Sir David, you will be pleased to know that only this weekend I was able to send to my permanent secretary and deputy permanent secretary a proposal to establish a penal reform implementation unit in the Ministry of Home Affairs,” he said.
In addition, Nicholls said a new Penal System Bill which “reforms the whole penal system” would soon be revealed.
Overhaul
“We’re going to have a new Penal System Act which looks at the whole penal system, dealing with sentencing and all the options available to courts when people have been convicted. We will have a new piece of legislation that governs the management of our prisons. We reformed the government industrial schools and the reformatory schools legislation for the Child Justice Act, but we will have a Correctional Facilities Act which modernises our Prisons Act, which we have not looked at in over 60-70 years.
“If you’re going to talk about breaking the cycle of gang violence, if you’re going to talk about breaking the cycle of recidivism and the people rotating in and out of prison, families rotating family members and generations in and out of prison, we’re going to have to look at how we treat for everyone who is incarcerated. The Penal System Act will deal with whether or not they should be incarcerated based on the level of culpability, the seriousness of the crime and all the other factors that the judges have to take into consideration,” he said.
Nicholls said it was a must for there to be a rehabilitation plan for “every single person who enters the prison system”, tailored specifically to them. He said factors such as understanding their socio-economic background and how they were going to be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society were vital aspects of the upcoming changes.
In addition, the Home Affairs minister said they would be partnering with the Barbados Defence Force (BDF), the Social Empowerment Agency and the Ministry of Education to launch a programme for at-risk youth.
New programme
“We will have, very shortly, a new initiative called the Residential Youth Diversion Programme. This will deal with what we call at-risk youth, young people who have been giving trouble in the school system, who the probation department, the education officers, guidance counsellors, the teachers, the principals, the nosy neighbours, will all tell you how they knew they would end up before the court.
“The ministry of education and the schools will have their information on the background of this child: absenteeism, gambling, drinking, smoking at school, interfering with girls or allowing the girls to interfere with them, as that happens too. And all that history is there and the profiles; we have all that information, and then we are surprised when they get into conflict with the law,” he said.
Nicholls said the programme was geared for youth who were not yet convicted or before the courts, but required intervention. He said it would be run by the BDF, with oversight provided by the Probation Department, the Social Empowerment Agency and the Ministry of Education.
In addition, the minister said they were planning to launch a national offender rehabilitation and reintegration strategy as well as a youth rehabilitation centre, as part of a CAF loan for criminal justice and citizenship security.
“When people come out of Dodds [Prison] as young people, it wouldn’t make sense to take them back into the communities from which they came. And those are the initiatives that we are building to reform the penal system,” he said.
(CA)