Victims of crime or their families may soon have the opportunity to face their attackers as the T&T Prison Service moves to introduce victim-offender dialogue to its rehabilitation system.This was revealed by Assistant Commissioner of Prisons Gerard Wilson at the launch of the service's three-day exhibition at Gulf City Mall, La Romaine, yesterday.
The event, entitled Creative Expressions from Behind the Prison Wall, is part of an audio, visual and performing arts programme for inmates.
The programme is just one part of restorative justice and Wilson said the victim-offender dialogue was a feature that has worked in the United States. It will allow victims or, in the case of murder or manslaughter, a relative to visit the convict in prison where both parties will have a chance to speak while under supervision. He said it might bring closure to both victims and offenders.
"We have started to prepare in terms of restorative justice and one of the biggest facets in it and this victim/offender meeting where both can meet and there is some level of closure for the victim. Pretty soon we will like to introduce that to our system because it is happening abroad where it is quite effective and we are attempting to do that here now.
"I can't give you a timeframe but it is something that we are looking at in terms of the whole restorative process. Both parties must first agree. It could be murder whereby if a son or daughter is murdered, the parent, either one, can come to see the offender.
"I've seen it in America where the offender, more or less, was very nervous about the meeting so that said something. It said to him that he was getting an opportunity and I think that is what we have not done. I think we have to start looking at doing that. It could help because it brings closure to the victim's family, if it is a murder, and to the offender because he would feel that he has gotten it off his conscience."
Despite the negative publicity the prison service faced this year with prison breaks, uprising by inmates and wage protests by prisons officers, Wilson said they were doing their part in crime fighting. He said rehabilitation programmes helped to reform prisoners so that they would not become repeat offenders. In addition, he said, YTEPP and other tertiary education programmes were also available to prisoners.
Snr Supt Fyzool Haniff said employers had to do their part in stemming recidivism by not turning away former convicts who were looking for employment. He said that the public needed to give them a second chance to keep them from turning back to a life of crime.
