It was with some dismay, but not shock, to read the newly published report from the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) that found the rehabilitation programmes we believed were in place were completely neglected. The report was commissioned by the Portfolio of Internal and External Affairs and has over sixty recommendations in it on how to address the many problems within the prison system and in particular the growing problem of recidivism (relapsing into criminal behaviour).

We have reported on and watched the Government Information Service (GIS) press releases and videos showing the prisoners being taught new work skills including education. The Cayman Islands Prison Service actually declares that it aims “to address offending behaviour, improve education and work skills as it prepares the prisoners for their return to the community.” It would appear that is nothing but propaganda and we all have been lied to.

The report found that this part of the vision statement was completely absent as there are no proper rehabilitation programmes for offenders for their behaviour, addictions, anger and violence problems or educational needs. The entire concept of rehabilitation has been sacrificed for security.

Security? So much security the prisoners still are able to obtain the drugs they want! The report stresses a “compelling need” to address the incidence of drug and alcohol addiction within the prison population. Amazingly there is no drug treatment inside there.

Even prisoners with mental illness are not being treated and those with addiction problems are ignored. The report says the prison staff are unable to deal with this. “Both the mental illness and the underlying addiction must be treated if there is any expectation that the offender will not re-offend in future.”

“All the support services serving the Drug Treatment Court are not trained nor equipped to deal with offenders with mental illness issues so this needs to be addressed through training,” the report said.

The report recommends: “The Cayman Islands should not wait until they are in a total crisis to make the changes necessary to introduce rehabilitation as a primary focus in their prisons. Incarceration is the means to an end, the end being rehabilitation of prisoners who will contribute to a safer society once released.”

And these words of wisdom: “Placing safe custody and secure detention as the primary purpose is simply to adopt that the primary purpose of a prison is the simple warehousing prisoners for a fixed period of time.”

Adult Programmes should be at the heart of rehabilitation activity. In the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation their Adult Programmes comprise the Office of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (OSATS); the Office of Correctional Education (OCE); the Office of Community Partnerships and the Office of Rehabilitative Programme Planning and Accountability.

They use an evidence-based instrument – Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) – to assess offender needs and assign them to appropriate programmes for maximum effectiveness.

In the UK the rehabilitation of offenders is a key feature of the modern UK criminal justice system, and work to rehabilitate prisoners goes on, in varying degrees, in every prison. While in the past, rehabilitation may have been directed at ‘reforming the character’ of prisoners, its focus is now on preventing re-offending.

Rob Owen, chief executive of the UK St. Giles Trust (set up to break the cycle of offending) in October 2010 said, “St Giles Trust has long known that prisoners can play an active role in their own rehabilitation and that of others by being put to work during their sentence. Our own Peer Advice Project – which trains serving prisoners to become trained advice workers able to help their fellow inmates – is highly valued by prisoners as it gets them out of their cells, occupies their minds and improves their skills.”

Why has rehabilitation been ignored here? It is an utter disgrace. It is not just the Prison Service who is at fault. Every single person in Government and not just the politicians must take the blame. What is the point of locking away someone for a few years and tell him “not to be a naughty boy again, or else you’ll be back here.” “Back here” at our expense!! “Back here” after committing another offence that is probably even more serious. “Back here” to make the RCIPS statistics look better because they have caught another offender. “Back here” so we can have another rapist smile and say to a government camera that being in Northward has made him a better person and he is now rehabilitated only for him to be arrested and charged for committing the same offense again as soon as he was released.

Every single statistic from the prison systems in the USA and the UK show that rehabilitation actually saves money – a lot of money – and makes the general public safer. So why have we ignored it? Why haven’t we increased the budget in this area? We have increased the RCIPS’s budget and given them more powers, some even bordering on the Draconian. Why hasn’t rehabilitation been given top priority and why have we been lied to? I am angry because I have been taken as a fool.