THE EDITOR, Madam:
I AM late in responding to Mr. Keron Campbell's "Letter of the Day" published on October 9, with the caption 'Rehabilitation or nothing."
Mr. Campbell may be too young to know that there was once a time when prisoners had applicable training and were gainfully employed in the penal institutions.
Please note that in the 1960's and 70's prisoners were sentenced to hard labour. Their first task was to break stones from the quarries for fixing the roads. They were employed as shoemakers, tailors and bakers. It was a popular saying of the time that "prisoners bake the best bread". It was also they who used to cut the flowers which were used to decorate the churches in Spanish Town on a Sunday morning.
But the merchants started to complain when prisoners were baking bread, what was going to happen to their (the big man's) bakery? What was to become of their (the big man's) shoe establishment when prisoners were shoemakers? Prisoners were "boxing bread out of their mouths!"
And as has become customary, the government had to bow to the pressure of the businessman and phase out the hard-labour component of the penal system.
So now, we have criminals sentenced to idleness in prisons, subject to the adage "The devil finds work for idle hands". May the Lord help us to get back to the "old-time religion."
I am, etc.,
ENID GRAY
Spanish Town P.O
St. Catherine.
