Full jail terms to be served

(CNS): There will be no more unsupervised early release for anyone sentenced to jail with the introduction of a new law that changes the regime surrounding the treatment of offenders and their release. With no more 'get out of jail free' passes, all inmates will be required to undergo training and rehabilitation before they walk out of HMP Northward, and prisoners who satisfy the new release board will still serve the remainder of their sentence under strict supervision. No prisoner will be released before serving 60% of his jail term behind bars, and if deemed ready to return to the community, he will be properly supervised throughout the remaining 40% and any infractions will see offenders back in their cells.

The conditional release bill, which passed through its second reading on Friday evening in the Legislative Assembly, creates a new regime regarding how much time prisoners serve and how that times is managed. Replacing the parole provisions in the prison law, the premier, who introduced the bill, said it would result in a lower risk of re-offending.

Explaining the major changes in the bill, Alden McLaughlin, who is also the home affairs minister and responsible for the prison, said the law focused on rehabilitation and was aimed at reducing the country’s very high rate of recidivism. Cayman has a 73% re-offending rate, which is the highest in the Caribbean, and experts say it is because prisoners are released early without having undergone proper rehabilitation or training. They are released without any monitoring back into the exact environments they left before landing in jail.

“We are told by the police all the time that when certain people are released crime spikes and when they round up the set of people and they are back in jail there is fall-off,” McLaughlin said. He added that the current spike in crime was likely down to the release of certain prisoners and once the police have the evidence to arrest and charge them, the crime level will fall.

McLaughlin explained to his colleagues that the current early release system is not conditional on prisoners reforming and when released from Northward offenders are not monitored or supervised.

“Under this law no prisoner will be released without supervision,” he told the LA. “Ten years will mean ten years,” he added, explaining that at least 60% must be served inside jail. Then the prisoners will be entitled to appear before the conditional release board and if the offender has successfully completed rehabilitation and training, he will be released to serve his remaining 40% under a supervision order with the Department of Community Rehabilitation until the full sentence is spent.

McLaughlin said although people expected wrongdoers to be punished, government had to address offending behaviour and make a concerted effort to reform people before they are released because, despite a long history of attempts at reform, none had worked.

At present, most prisoners are released after serving two-thirds of their sentence, regardless of their state of rehabilitation and are not subject to any supervision. The premier said that in some cases prisoners can be released even earlier because they can appear before the parole board, where release can be granted after just one third of a prisoner's time being served, depending on the offence. If they are released 'on license', this is enforced until what would have been the early release date of two-thirds of their sentence. 

Under the new system there will be no consideration of release until inmates have served 60% of their sentence. McLaughlin said that in order to be released to serve the remaining 40% in the community under supervision, prisoners must be considered at a low risk of re-offending. 

He said existing prisoners will not be adversely affected or spend longer in jail because of the new law if their early release date comes sooner than the new 60% term.

The premier said that government had to address the poor recidivism rate to address the crime problem. He said that the police were criticised heavily for not doing enough to fight crime but while they might not be perfect, by the time the police are involved “a lot of other things have gone wrong”. 

He said he wasn’t going to "beat up" on the police or the civil service to satisfy populist sentiments and added that government had a duty to act constructively and address the issues, not pay lip service or sound off.

“Government is trying to do something to address recidivism and find a means for those who offend over and over again to get off that wheel,” he said.

McLaughlin said it was by no means the end of the story and it will not solve the crime problem but he described it as a major step and offenders will know that they will not get out of jail early unless that have taken part in a rehabilitation programme.

He admitted that the new regime would put pressure on the Department of Community Rehabilitation and he was very conscious of the agency’s ability to cope with the increased workload but he said that was not a reason to not do anything.

“I am painfully conscious of these issues but does that mean we sit on hands and not make an effort to change a system that not working?” he asked.

Raisinghis concerns about the civil service being the target of considerable criticism, he said that, like it or not, government would need to recruit the necessary staff in the prison, police, courts as well as the social service departments.

“We need these things,” he said, as he pointed out the pressing need to address crime and the social issues at heart of the criminality and the need to find the resources for the agencies dealing with the criminal justice system and social depravation.