For­mer Min­is­ter of State in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, Don­na Cox, used pris­on­ers to do land­scap­ing at her pri­vate res­i­dence. Cox has claimed she was not the on­ly per­son to be of­fered that com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. She is re­port­ed as say­ing it was of­fered to many oth­er cit­i­zens. "There is a long list of peo­ple who were giv­en that ser­vice," Cox in­sist­ed. She said she did not as­sign any­one to come to her house to cut her lawn. From the above com­ments, she has not de­nied the al­le­ga­tion! This leads me to con­clude then that she is doubt­ful of the true mean­ing of the term, "com­mu­ni­ty sup­port event." To clar­i­fy any doubts which Ms Cox may have, I wish to shed some light on the is­sue of com­mu­ni­ty sup­port events. In­mates may be di­rect­ed to en­gage in com­mu­ni­ty sup­port events as part of their re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ex­er­cis­es.

Pris­on­ers can be used to con­struct play­grounds and or even home con­struc­tion pro­grammes and for restora­tion work for many of our di­lap­i­dat­ed his­tor­i­cal build­ings. Any out­side work that ben­e­fits so­ci­ety, such as in light man­u­fac­tur­ing, re­pair work, of­fice work, on farms or land con­ser­va­tion projects. Through com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, the com­mu­ni­ty de­rives a ben­e­fit while sav­ing the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with in­car­cer­a­tion of the con­vict and hav­ing the work car­ried out by paid staff. It is al­so thought to be a way to ed­u­cate con­victs on what con­sti­tutes eth­i­cal­ly ac­cept­able be­hav­iour. Ms Cox, how can per­form­ing land­scape at your pri­vate res­i­dence amount to a com­mu­ni­ty sup­port event? Please ex­plain to us the tax­pay­ers, out of whose pock­ets these pris­on­ers were be­ing re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed. I await a re­sponse.

Ana­jali Ba­boolal

Mon­trose