Prisons Commissioner John Rougier has commended the St Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) for its food park initiative, saying it's the best programme implemented in the Women's Prison during his 37 years service. Rougier said the food park brought calm and peace to an environment which was sometimes faced with violence and irritability.
The food park was an initiative of the UWI and was the brainchild of PhD sociology student Patricia Jaggasar–Clement.The first food park was launched at the Trinity Hall on the campus to encourage food security and sustainability.Rougier, who spoke on the topic-Synergy between Restorative Justice and the Food Park Model-was among a host of other speakers at a seminar at the Social Sciences Lounge on Tuesday.
He said: "The food park project that now exists at the Women's Prison is the best project that I have ever seen within the Prison Service."And what is good about it is that my officers have recognised that and accepted that as well, so that there is no jealousy."Rougier said the benefits of the initiative were critical.
He said prisoners serving long sentences were at times frustrated over the long wait for court dates and needed some level of peace."These initiatives are what are required to bring calm within the system and therefore this is why we have opened up our system to institutions and volunteers," Rougier said.
He added he noticed changes in the women prisoners who were involved in the food park initiative."You can't imagine the difference this initiative has made to their lives," he said.Jaggasar–Clement said the initiative was about the creation of common pool spaces for food production for people to produce their own food.She said: "It is also a social development intervention because it deals with the issues that social development seeks to address.
"The model came out of a class on campus when we were given a mandate to develop a lobby to support one of the millennium development goals and basically what we did was come up with the idea of planting for food security."She said after discussions with prison officials, the idea came about to have a garden at the Women's Prison.
She added: "We already had a plan and we launched on August 27 at the prison."The produce harvested is used within the system for the diets of the inmates," Jaggasar–Clement added.'These initiatives are what are required to bring calm within the system and therefore this is why we have opened up our system to institutions and volunteers.'-John Rougier, Prisons Commissioner