PHILLIPSNEW OPERATIONAL guidelines are coming to crack down on irregularities in the Conditional Release programme for prisoners.
Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of National Security Senator Kern Spencer says the new guidelines would include the vetting of all work sites by members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, to ensure that there was no association with criminals, as well as regular monitoring of the chosen sites for the inmates deployed there.
National Security Minister Dr. Peter Phillips had suspended the work release programme, after a prisoner escaped from a work site last December. Under this programme, inmates were allowed to work out of the prison lockup for up to 40-hour per week on their own. Inmates who apply for work release are chosen on the basis of good behaviour, a community report by their probation officers, a risk assessment and the availability of suitable jobs. They were sometimes allowed out unescorted.
At that time, the Constant Spring police were investigating the escape of a prisoner, Michael Brown, from a house in Kingston 8, where he was doing plumbing work. Mr Brown was sentenced to life for a non-capital murder and was an inmate at the Tower Street Rehabilitation Centre. At least two other similar cases had been reported early last year.
Senator Spencer emphasised that inmates serving time for violent crimes are not eligible for participation in the external programmes.
He said the Minister was in the process of effecting procedural and legislative changes, to make it mandatory for persons convicted of murder and other violent crimes to serve a longer portion of their sentence before they become eligible for parole.
There is also to be an expansion of the prison rehabilitation programme to enable inmates serving sentences of one year or more to acquire basic literacy, numeracy and vocational skills. He said that the Ministry was also securing funds to construct newer and more modern facilities.
