EIGHTEEN PRISONERS will return home to spend Easter with their families because Food for the Poor has paid their fines.
Sixteen of the inmates were released yesterday from the St. Catherine Adult Correctional Centre in Spanish Town, while the other two were released the previous day from the Richmond Adult Correctional Centre in St. Mary. Fines amounting to over $350,000 have been paid for the prisoners since Monday.
"I'd love to see all of you come back here... not as inmates, but rather as an inspiration and beacons of light to the men you'll be leaving here today," said Bradley Finzi-Smith, executive director of Food for the Poor, in an address to the inmates
yesterday. He said, "Go out there and make positive plans for your lives."
Before the Richmond two were released, Fr. Burchell McPherson, who headed the Food for the Poor team, encouraged them not to repeat the same mistake that took them to prison in the first place.
WALK AWAY FROM PROVOCATION
"Now that we have paid your fines, we want you to return to society not being bitter men, but being grateful men who have been given a second lease on life to make something meaningful and positive of your lives," Fr. McPherson said. "Walk away from provocation and sometimes you have to play the fool or the coward to survive in this life."
Sandra Ramsay, head of Food for the Poor's Prison Release Ministry, said that "these are men who could not have paid their fines which range from $6,000 to $50,000, and so they had to serve the time."
Now in its second year, the organisation has helped to positively impact the lives of over 100 ex-inmates who have been released through this carefully administered prison release programme.
"It has been said that most of the crimes that are now being committed are being done by ex-inmates. That may be the case, but that does not involve any of the ex-inmates that we have released under our rehabilitative programme," said Mrs. Ramsay.
"The inmates that we seek to release aren't those that have committed serious crimes," Mrs. Ramsay added. "The crimes they have committed are very, very petty offences, and in most cases, if these men had the money to pay the fines, they wouldn't have been in prison in the first place."
The next release is scheduled for Christmas.
