MINISTER of Home Affairs, Mr. Clement Rohee on Tuesday formally established the Guyana Prison Service Sentencing Management Board (SMB).
The body is tasked with providing a consultative forum to address the training requirements for inmates prior to their re-integration into society. “It would seem, to me, that the sentence management which is, fundamentally speaking, managing the sentence of over 1,000 to 2,000 persons, is a task that requires special attention, apart from managing the staff,” he said on the occasion.
Rohee said, “The Board requires a special dispensation, which will take the form of a group of persons, who, in the view of the Ministry of Home Affairs, would have recognised that prison is more than just private people taking advantage of the opportunity to train, upgrade and prepare prisoners for re-integration into society. In our view, the sentencing management board is excellently positioned for that responsibility.”
According to him, the GPS staff needs assistance like all members of law enforcement agencies and in the same way as the lawmakers, many, many years ago, found it necessary to establish the Prison Visiting Committee, in which civilians play a role in the management of the system.
“In an equal manner, civilians will also play a role on this board,” he said.
Rohee thanked the civilian members of the SMB, who took the bold step in coming forward for the first time, as they did on the Parole Board, the Prison Visiting Committee and the GPS Agricultural Development Board, established a few weeks ago.
He emphasised that the SMB will play a major role in shaping things up for prisoners, because its members would have access to data and statistics and visits to any prison facility, which will give them an idea of the needs of the inmates, in terms of their strengths and weaknesses.
Rohee also urged the GPS to work collaboratively with the SMB on capacity building in the training of the prisoners as outlined in the terms of reference.
He told the gathering that it took sometime before the SMB was created because of the terms of reference and Government’s perspective that the prison does not hold 100 per cent lost souls.
Rohee explained that, in some cases, prisoners have committed crimes for the very first time; some have even claimed they were framed, thus serving a sentence for someone else who should be really serving the jail term and there are also a host of other reasons in respect to the inmates.
Director of Prisons, Mr. Dale Erskine, in his remarks, expressed his sincere gratitude for the establishment of the SMB, pointing out that the GPS is responsible for restoring a prisoner into society once the sentence is completed.
As such the GPS needs to provide proper training and that is where the SMB will play a meaningful role, he stated.
The members are Reverend Fay Clarke, Officer-in-Charge, Welfare and Corrections; Mr. Gerald Gouveia of the Private Sector Commission (PSC); Mr. Beni Sankar, Ms. Sylvia Conway of the Parole Board; Mr. Ayube Mohamed, of the Prison Visiting Committee; Mr. Forbes Munroe of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security and Mr. Yojna Hernandez of the Home Affairs Ministry.