The role of the His Majesty’s Prisons is to take care of prisoners as they undergo their rehabilitation process, not to abuse them.
Assistant Superintendant of Prisons Julian Clarke made this clear during a recent appearance on WE FM’s COP CHAT program.
Assistant Superintendant Clarke made mention of the fact that there are those in the public that take issue with treatment of prisoners, deeming it to be too lofty, but pointed out that it is not the duty of the prison to mistreat its inmates.
“They are not sent to prison to be punished, but the whole aim is to reclaim the prisoner. I need to say that early because there are folks who would say “oh we have the prisoners living high and mighty and nice and they should not be like that, why you don’t deal with them a certain way”. That is contrary to their wellbeing, so I wanted to at least let the nation know that our role is to take care of our people who are in prisons and not necessarily to abuse them,” he said.
Assistant Superintendant Clarke during the program also noted that there is a need for more psychologists and psychiatrists within the prison system.
Acknowledging that as it pertains to the rehabilitation of prisoners within the prisons of St. Vincent and the Grenadines there is still a lot of work to be done.