THE prison population is getting younger every day and even schoolchildren are committing some of the most heinous crimes imaginable, inclusive of physical attacks, oftentimes leading to murder. With the rapidity of deceleration of the economy and punitive fiscal policies of the Coalition Government, leading to redundancies and skyrocketing unemployment, the consequences became beyond disastrous, with spending power constrained to bare essentials, where even the quality of nutritional intake is severely compromised.
Most of these young people who have been inculcated with a moral compass and consequently adhere to discipline will adjust accordingly, but it is the youths who have no guiding force or role model pointing them in the right direction who find it preferable to pick up a weapon and try to extract quick riches from the unwary, even if they have to kill to obtain the spoils of their forays into criminality.

Very soon they become hardened criminals who have no compunction for their actions and often display no compassion for their victims, indiscriminately depriving them of their property, money, and lives without thinking of the devastation they wreak on the families, especially vulnerable dependants, such as elderly parents and children.
They perfect the art of escape after the execution of their crimes, so oftentimes when they are caught after a long career of thefts and murders they are treated as ‘first-time offenders,’ figuratively rapped on the knuckles by bleeding
-hearts judges and magistrates and sent to prey on society once again, with scant or no punishment.Imprisonment, especially with hard labour, is meant to act as a deterrent to engagement in criminal activities in civil societies, and this should ideally work concurrently with rehabilitation to integrate prisoners into families, communities, and the society at large. It is the general consensus that prisoners should be treated humanely. They were caught committing their crimes, while many criminals who have been getting away without discovery – including those leaders in the trade unions and political parties who have devised schemes to destroy public and private properties, among other anti-social activities– are enjoying their freedom and the largesse they acquired from the previous government.

Retired Director of Prisons Dale Erskine, who during his tenure created synergies to make the prison system more aligned to rehabilitation rather than punishment, had incorporated new programmes in the prison system to create a dynamic whereby prison was no longer somewhere merely to lock away people found guilty of aberrant behaviour, but where the inmates could be guided, directed, and encouraged to change their thinking and attitude into more positive, achievement-oriented directions. That change was a work in progress throughout Erskine’s tenure as initially officer-in-charge of the Georgetown Prison, and then as director of prisons. The changes wrought by the forward, humanistic thinking of Dale Erskine were multi-faceted and transformational. One of the programmes he set in motion was the identification and employment of a skilled bank of prisoners who were at least risk of escaping or engaging in additional criminal activities. The prisoners were thus enabled to earn incomes, part of which provided for their own needs; the needs of relatives, including young children left defenceless as their mothers struggled to take care of their prerequisites for survival; and some saved for their own upkeep upon their release, because the world knows that for a person with a prison record finding employment is a difficult feat. However, there are those who are considered beyond human redemption, because they have become so hardened in their hearts that opportunities for atonement and salvation are wasted on them and society is better served by locking them up for the longest possible time and, upon their release, keeping them under secret surveillance until the protective services are completely assured of their restored sense of right and wrong, and their intention to continue to adhere to the laws of the land.