Prisons debate ends in a tie

The Sterling Stewart reading room at the Port of Spain prison was converted to a temporary auditorium on Tuesday, as inmates clashed in a spirited discussion on absentee fathers at the Prisons Service’s fourth annual Prison Debate Competition.

After several weeks of research and preparation, both teams put forward convincing arguments as they debated the topic, “Are children with absentee fathers more likely to join gangs?” Judges Errol Fabien, Ira Mathur and Aaron Low Chew Tung were pressed to decide a clear winner, and ruled the competition a tie.

The competition also coincided with the official launch of the Sterling Stewart Reading Room, an initiative of the Prison Service in conjunction with the Children’s Ark Foundation and Newsday columnist Debbie Jacob’s Wishing for Wings Foundation. The project seeks to have the children of inmates visit their parents in prison so their fathers can read to them.

Deputy Commissioner of Prisons Dane Clarke said he was generally pleased with inmates’ response to the competition and more should be done to highlight the negative effects of absentee fathers, adding that education and literacy remainsthe key weapon in the fight against crime.

“We also need to encourage literacy skills amongst our charges.

“There is strong evidence to suggest that increased literacy rates assist in crime reduction, which is one of the measures employed by the Prison Service in tackling crime.”