On Tues­day, I had the priv­i­lege of co-fa­cil­i­tat­ing a ses­sion at the Part­ner­ship of the Caribbean and the Eu­ro­pean Union Jus­tice Cen­tre’s Re­gion­al Prison Train­ing Se­ries.

The ses­sions fo­cused on strength­en­ing cus­to­di­al man­age­ment, youth re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and rein­te­gra­tion, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the T&T Prison Ser­vice.

This project is a re­gion­al crim­i­nal jus­tice re­form ini­tia­tive de­signed to re­duce case back­logs and strength­en in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty. It is im­ple­ment­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP), with fund­ing from the Eu­ro­pean Union.

With more trou­bled youth end­ing up on the wrong side of the law. Our chal­lenge is not on­ly to iden­ti­fy them be­fore they com­mit crimes, but al­so to de­ter­mine how best to re­ha­bil­i­tate them once they en­ter cus­tody.

Stud­ies have shown that many peo­ple en­ter­ing cor­rec­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions have pre-ex­ist­ing men­tal health dif­fi­cul­ties. These may be as­so­ci­at­ed with child­hood abuse, ne­glect, vi­o­lence, aban­don­ment, pover­ty, ad­dic­tion and trau­ma. Some have nev­er re­ceived the psy­cho­log­i­cal or emo­tion­al sup­port they need­ed. Per­haps, had that sup­port been avail­able, some might not have spi­ralled in­to ac­tions deemed crim­i­nal.

In­car­cer­a­tion it­self can cre­ate fur­ther psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tress. Poor prison con­di­tions and the sud­den loss of free­dom can con­tribute to ad­just­ment dif­fi­cul­ties, anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion.

To re­ha­bil­i­tate of­fend­ers ef­fec­tive­ly, we must recog­nise and ad­dress their men­tal health needs. We must al­so ap­pre­ci­ate that of­fend­ers un­der 25 have brains that are still de­vel­op­ing the neur­al path­ways in­volved in judge­ment, im­pulse con­trol and de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

There is an­oth­er chal­lenge. On re­lease, many re­turn to the very en­vi­ron­ments that con­tributed to their dis­tress in the first place, of­ten with­out ad­e­quate fam­i­ly or com­mu­ni­ty sup­port.

UNDP project as­so­ciate Aman­da Ack­bar­ali and I ex­am­ined men­tal health, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and be­hav­iour­al man­age­ment in cus­tody, with em­pha­sis on young fe­male of­fend­ers.

While the Unit­ed Na­tions Bangkok Rules (2010) ad­dress the spe­cif­ic rights of in­car­cer­at­ed women, the UN Rules for the Pro­tec­tion of Ju­ve­niles De­prived of their Lib­er­ty em­pha­sise the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tions.

Cor­rec­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions can present an im­por­tant op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress men­tal health dif­fi­cul­ties, treat past trau­ma, fa­cil­i­tate drug re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and es­tab­lish com­mu­ni­ty sup­port sys­tems be­fore re­lease.

Learn­ing emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion is just as im­por­tant as learn­ing a prac­ti­cal skill.

I wit­nessed first­hand the op­por­tu­ni­ties that re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion can cre­ate when I saw Daniel Phillip, a young re­mand in­mate giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to record a song at Dwayne Bra­vo’s 47 Pro­duc­tions Stu­dio. Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Ri­car­do Dass, Pol­i­cy and Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port Of­fice di­rec­tor Za­heer Ali and Bra­vo de­serve com­men­da­tion for or­ches­trat­ing this ini­tia­tive.

There are un­tapped tal­ents be­neath the anger, ag­gres­sion and hurt of many in­mates. We must give them op­por­tu­ni­ties they may nev­er have had, while recog­nis­ing that some have grown up with­out the emo­tion­al sup­port every child de­serves.

The Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy & Ap­plied Arts of T&T’s Kir­win Pyle-Williams, chair of Crim­i­nal Jus­tice, Hu­man Se­cu­ri­ty and Le­gal Stud­ies, al­so fa­cil­i­tat­ed a ses­sion. He high­light­ed the work his de­part­ment is do­ing to re­ha­bil­i­tate for­mer in­mates and help them es­tab­lish in­de­pen­dent busi­ness­es.

An ex­cel­lent mod­el, cog­nizant of the stig­ma at­tached to a crim­i­nal con­vic­tion that can make se­cur­ing em­ploy­ment dif­fi­cult. Cre­at­ing their own busi­ness­es al­so al­lows for­mer in­mates to sup­port and look out for one an­oth­er.

Much al­so de­pends on our prison of­fi­cers. They must un­der­stand that peo­ple in their care may need treat­ment, guid­ance and com­pas­sion. Of­fi­cers have the pow­er to make a last­ing dif­fer­ence.

There are suc­cess sto­ries with­in our cor­rec­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions that rarely make the head­lines. Be­hind many re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed lives is an of­fi­cer who recog­nised po­ten­tial in a trou­bled young man, gave him re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, en­cour­aged him to learn a trade or sup­port­ed him in com­plet­ing his CXC ex­am­i­na­tions. That young man may even­tu­al­ly be­come a taxi dri­ver, car­pen­ter or busi­ness­man rather than an­oth­er sta­tis­tic in the crime re­ports.

Dur­ing my past vis­its to Car­rera and the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre, I was struck by the im­por­tance of the re­la­tion­ships in­mates de­vel­op with of­fi­cers. The of­fi­cers they re­mem­ber are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those who were the tough­est dis­ci­pli­nar­i­ans, but those who en­cour­aged them.

Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion is not soft. It is strate­gic.

The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of prison of­fi­cers ex­tends be­yond keep­ing in­mates with­in prison walls and pro­tect­ing the wider so­ci­ety. It al­so in­cludes en­sur­ing those who re­turn to our streets, where our chil­dren and el­der­ly par­ents live, emerge with less anger, bet­ter cop­ing skills and the train­ing and op­por­tu­ni­ties to re­build their lives.

Let us re­mem­ber that a prison is not mere­ly a place where peo­ple serve sen­tences. It is al­so an en­vi­ron­ment in which hu­man be­ings live, in­ter­act, ex­pe­ri­ence dis­tress and, hope­ful­ly, are giv­en op­por­tu­ni­ties to change.