NATIONAL SECURITY Minister, Dr. Peter Phillips, yesterday pointed to the increased focus on rehabilitation in the island's correctional facilities as one of the steps that were critical to the reduction of crime in the society.
Dr. Phillips, in addressing some members of staff of the Department of Correctional Services of Jamaica (DCSJ) at the Fort Augusta Women's Adult Correctional Centre in Portmore, St. Catherine, after leading a tour of the institution yesterday, said the extent of overcrowding in the institutions was a partial reflection of the failure of the social arrangements within the society. As a result, he said, all Jamaicans were accountable to some extent for the undesirable crime levels in the country and should support the work of the DCSJ in its drive to foster effective rehabilitation of criminals who had ran afoul of the law and landed in the correctional institutions.
The Minister said while there was much contrast between the environments at Fort Augusta and the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre which he visited the week before, overcrowded infrastructure was a definite similarity between the two. That situation, he said, placed a special responsibility on the Department of Correctional Services to seek to guide those in confinement towards positive, productive and law-abiding endeavours instead of crime.
"The truth of the matter is that the admission of the failure which results in people being incarcerated should underscore the need for us in the Department of Correctional Services to place rehabilitation as a central plank of our activities here because ultimately, part of our task must be to ensure that persons who come here can be reformed to the extent possible and can rejoin society as effectively functioning and law-abiding citizens," declared Dr. Phillips.
