KINGSTON, Jamaica -The Ministry of National Security is working to strengthen the prison rehabilitation programme in order to reduce the number of re-offenders and equip inmates with the skills to re-enter society.

Minister of State in the Ministry, Zavia Mayne said Jamaica has a recidivism rate of 40 per cent.

Recidivism is the rate at which individuals who are imprisoned or otherwise punished for offences committed, repeat those or other crimes.

“We want to ensure that when persons come within the correctional facilities, they are so rehabilitated, that when they exit the facilities, we want to put them in a position where they do not go on to further a life of criminality, but that they can fit into society as productive members,” Mayne said.

He explained that as it now stands, all or most of the programmes in the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) are voluntary and inmates are not mandated to participate.

“The programmes by and large are voluntary when it comes on to inmates [adult prisoners]. For the wards meaning juveniles, we have a number of programmes that are not voluntary. We have to make sure that through whatever means, be it encouragement, persuasion or counselling, that we increase the level of participation,” the State Minister said.

Mayne also expressed interest in ensuring that the engagement between the inmates and the DCS is empowering them to be better persons.

“We want to make sure that persons are not just taking on whatever activity because they are seeking to keep themselves engaged. We want them to see it as an introduction to a new way of life, something that will give them hope, so that once they are no longer there, this is something that will chart a new course for their lives,” he stated.

In the meantime, Mayne informed that there are inmates who are enrolled in tertiary programmes, noting that this is an indication that rehabilitation is possible and important.

“There are second chance programmes that persons who may have done subjects before and were not successful, have the opportunity to redo subjects. Persons may also do subjects for the first time. I have been advised that there are even persons within the facilities who are now enrolled in tertiary institutions. So, that again, is something that we would want to examine and see how best we can improve on that,” he stated.

Mayne added that since his appointment to the Ministry of National Security, he has had discussions about introducing new programmes at the DCS.

“We may want to introduce additional programmes offered. We really want to offer some strength to the programmes that we know add value and programmes that we know should work,” he said.