Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

The T&T Prison Ser­vice is in­ten­si­fy­ing its push to trans­form the coun­try’s prison sys­tem from one fo­cused pri­mar­i­ly on in­car­cer­a­tion to one cen­tred on cor­rec­tion, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and rein­te­gra­tion, Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Car­los Cor­raspe says.

Speak­ing at the sign­ing of a Strate­gic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment be­tween the Youth Train­ing and Em­ploy­ment Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme (YTEPP), the Amer­i­can Med­ical Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion As­so­ci­a­tion (AM­CA) and Vi­sion on Mis­sion (VoM) last Thurs­day, Cor­raspe said the col­lab­o­ra­tion would strength­en ef­forts to re­duce re-of­fend­ing by equip­ping in­mates with skills and sup­port need­ed to suc­cess­ful­ly rein­te­grate in­to so­ci­ety.

“We want strate­gi­cal­ly to move from pris­ons to cor­rec­tions,” Cor­raspe said, ex­plain­ing that while pris­ons pro­tect so­ci­ety by en­sur­ing of­fend­ers serve their court-im­posed sen­tences, cor­rec­tion­al ser­vices seek to ad­dress the un­der­ly­ing caus­es of crim­i­nal be­hav­iour. He not­ed that sim­ply in­car­cer­at­ing of­fend­ers pro­tects the pub­lic on­ly for the du­ra­tion of their sen­tence.

“If we are able to tran­si­tion from prison to cor­rec­tion, and we are able to re­duce those crim­ino­genic risks through re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive pro­gram­ming, then we are able to pro­tect so­ci­ety not just for the five years, but the five years plus when they leave,” Cor­raspe said.

He iden­ti­fied an­ti­so­cial be­hav­iour, crim­i­nal as­so­ci­a­tions, drug abuse, men­tal health is­sues and poor em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty as some of the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised fac­tors that con­tribute to crim­i­nal of­fend­ing.

Cor­raspe said VoM and YTEPP have been long­stand­ing part­ners of the prison ser­vice, with VoM pro­vid­ing pre-re­lease pro­grammes and YTEPP de­liv­er­ing vo­ca­tion­al train­ing since 2011 in ar­eas in­clud­ing car­pen­try, ma­son­ry, plumb­ing, elec­tri­cal in­stal­la­tion, culi­nary arts, gar­ment con­struc­tion, in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy, en­tre­pre­neur­ship and busi­ness plan­ning.

He said the new part­ner­ship would en­hance those pro­grammes and ul­ti­mate­ly ben­e­fit both the prison ser­vice and the wider so­ci­ety.

Cor­raspe stressed that re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion alone does not guar­an­tee of­fend­ers will re­main crime-free af­ter re­lease. He said in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice recog­nis­es that in­di­vid­u­als may still re­turn to crime if they lack em­ploy­ment, hous­ing or con­tin­ued coun­selling af­ter leav­ing prison.

“That is why this MoU is so im­por­tant,” he said.

“The work of Vi­sion on Mis­sion and YTEPP com­ing to­geth­er... is some­thing that we are very hap­py about to­day.” He said re­duc­ing re­cidi­vism re­mains one of the key per­for­mance in­di­ca­tors of a mod­ern cor­rec­tion­al sys­tem.

Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing, Pro­fes­sor Prakash Per­sad, de­scribed the agree­ment as a strate­gic in­vest­ment in peo­ple seek­ing a sec­ond chance. He said re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion must lead to rein­te­gra­tion, and rein­te­gra­tion must be sus­tained through em­pow­er­ment.

“Re­al de­vel­op­ment must al­so be mea­sured by how we treat those at the mar­gins, those seek­ing a sec­ond chance, those nav­i­gat­ing rein­te­gra­tion and those de­ter­mined to re­build their lives,” Per­sad said.

He said the ini­tia­tive goes be­yond vo­ca­tion­al train­ing by pro­vid­ing par­tic­i­pants with prac­ti­cal, mar­ketable skills, in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised cer­ti­fi­ca­tion through AM­CA and path­ways to mean­ing­ful em­ploy­ment.

“Em­ploy­ment is more than in­come. It is iden­ti­ty, it is sta­bil­i­ty, and it is one of the strongest pre­dic­tors of suc­cess­ful rein­te­gra­tion,” Per­sad said.

He said in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised qual­i­fi­ca­tions strength­en par­tic­i­pants’ em­ploy­ment prospects while restor­ing con­fi­dence and dig­ni­ty.

Per­sad not­ed that the ini­tia­tive com­ple­ments an ex­ist­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween COSTAATT and the T&T Prison Ser­vice, which fo­cus­es on train­ing prison of­fi­cers.

“Where the COSTAATT pro­gramme strength­ens the sys­tem, this part­ner­ship agree­ment strength­ens the in­di­vid­ual,” he said.

Per­sad said suc­cess­ful re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ben­e­fits not on­ly for­mer of­fend­ers but al­so their fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties and the na­tion­al econ­o­my by re­duc­ing the so­cial and fi­nan­cial costs as­so­ci­at­ed with re­peat of­fend­ing.

He called on em­ploy­ers and oth­er stake­hold­ers to sup­port re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ef­forts by cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­di­vid­u­als seek­ing to re­build their lives.

“Em­pow­er­ment does not end with train­ing,” he said.

“It must ex­tend in­to re­al op­por­tu­ni­ties in the work­force and in en­tre­pre­neur­ship.”