Michelle Loubon

It was a bit­ter­sweet re­union for in­mates and their chil­dren and rel­a­tives at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Arou­ca yes­ter­day. In the spir­it of the Christ­mas sea­son they spent time shar­ing ex­pe­ri­ences, trad­ing mem­o­ries and rekin­dling ac­quain­tances. Toys were dis­trib­uted to the chil­dren. Par­ents re­ceived ham­pers.

Pris­on­ers were giv­en bags of toi­letry. Every­one shared in a meal. The event was host­ed by The Pris­ons in col­lab­o­ra­tion with An­gel Tree Pro­gramme. Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er John Rougi­er urged rel­a­tives to con­tribute to the strength­en­ing of the fam­i­ly unit. Rougi­er main­tained he was a strong ad­vo­cate for "restora­tive jus­tice via a philo­soph­i­cal ap­proach."

He al­so made ref­er­ence to a speech he had de­liv­ered at a Cari­com Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) meet­ing in which he spoke about re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion with the as­sis­tance of the fam­i­ly. "We have found that pris­on­ers of­ten had to deal with the break up of their fam­i­lies. It is part of the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion. We found pris­on­ers have suf­fered as it re­lates to their fam­i­lies. We want the sup­port from the fam­i­ly."

"It is im­por­tant for us to main­tain re­la­tion­ships be­tween fam­i­lies. We want you to give some sort of en­cour­age­ment for what they have gone through. We want to sup­port the chil­dren at an­nu­al events." Shel­ter­ing un­der an um­brel­la at the Chil­dren's Christ­mas Par­ty at Jean Pierre Com­plex, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy said: "I sup­port (Tea Tree) it 100 per cent. Any ac­tiv­i­ty that strength­ens the fam­i­ly unit and con­tributes to peace and a re­duc­tion in vi­o­lence and may­hem."