Baptist minister wants govt to rethink restorative justice

A BAPTIST minister wants legislators to rethink their position on the reform of prisoners and give back some control to prison officers as inmates call “hits” on their lives.

During his sermon at the funeral of murdered prison officer Darren Francis on Monday, Pastor Earl Ellis reacted to statements from acting Attorney General Fitzgerald Hinds, that all control has been taken away from prison officers in the quest to initiate a more restorative approach. Hinds said this approach may be one of the reasons why prison officers are at risk today.

Ellis said there must be rules and guidelines, and removing them left prisoners free “to do what they want.” Saying the authorities have thrown out the baby with the bathwater, he said prisoners have so many human rights now that prison officers run the risk of being sued if they seek to discipline them.

In his tribute to the fallen officer, Hinds, who said he was one of those in the forefront of restorative justice when he served in the Ministry of National Security, pointed out, “The pendulum has swung, such that we have very little control over the behaviour of inmates and it leaves some issues for renew (sic)and rethink.”

Hinds spoke after acting Commissioner of Prisons Dane Clarke, who revealed that a week after the hit on Francis which ended his life, five more of his officers had received death threats over the weekend, including president of the Prison Officers Association Ceron Richards.

Hinds said there was a time when corporal punishment was a norm in prison and if prisoners misconducted themselves, they were fed a salt diet and put in solitary confinement, among other methods of control.

“Today, some of the controls that were imposed on prisoners and those institutions, because of our constitution and legal rights and arrangements, they no longer exist. Controls have all but disappeared.”

Responding to the pastor’s statement, Hinds said, “We have to find ways of exercising discipline and control of inmates.

“They have been sent there as a punishment. They have to be disciplined and controlled, and we just have to find a way to exercise that and deal with the issue on the outside as well, because these attacks are taking place on the outside, largely.

“The problems inside the prison service did not begin there and would not end there. Mr Francis, Mr Jackson and the 23 other officers who have all been murdered over the last few years for doing their jobs – that did not happen inside the prison. That happened on the outside and by own view, we have to work as a state, as a society – the pushback has to be from the outside.”