Thir­ty-three in­mates, in­clud­ing 20 serv­ing life sen­tences were to­day al­lowed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have spe­cial vis­its with their fam­i­lies.

The ini­tia­tive which was sanc­tioned by Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar was a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort among the Man­age­ment of the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, the Pro­grammes De­part­ment and the Wel­fare De­part­ment, which aims to main­tain the fa­mil­ial bonds that have been dis­rupt­ed as a re­sult of in­car­cer­a­tion.

Ra­moutar, dur­ing his brief ad­dress in­di­cat­ed that the ini­tia­tive, whilst not new, would con­tin­ue and would be an in­cen­tive for good be­hav­iour.

He added that se­cu­ri­ty is a must, but pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion is "a top agen­da".

Ra­moutar stressed that train­ing of staff is cru­cial for suc­cess­ful re­sults and that all av­enues will be utilised to ef­fect mean­ing­ful re­la­tion­ships be­tween of­fi­cers and charges.

He con­clud­ed by thank­ing the fam­i­lies for con­tin­u­ing to sup­port their loved ones even dur­ing in­car­cer­a­tion.

The in­mates and their fam­i­lies were treat­ed to ex­tend­ed vis­it time, a meal to­geth­er, pho­tographs and en­ter­tain­ment by the in-house In­mate Band, 'Mu­si­cal Vi­bra­tions'.