- NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 11/Aug 04:22

Why prison programmes are important

DEBBIE JACOB A FORMER student from Port of Spain Prison messaged to say he had heard me talking on the radio last week about the prisons’ debate teams I once organised with prison programmes. “Whenever you laughed, I could see you in class,” he said. It’s difficult to explain how much education and other programmes mean to many inmates in prison. It’s no exaggeration to say it is a lifeline. In prison, learning to recognise and express emotions, structure an argument in a debate or write an argumentative essay are meaningful beyond measure. These are confidence-building skills never before achieved. In my early days working in Port of Spain Prison, programmes thrived. A lifer made cash pans hidden in the roofs of beautiful hand-made houses. Inmates shaped concrete flower pots and carved flowers from soap. Supt Wilbert Lovell, still one of my favourite superintendents to work under, encouraged programmes, apprenticeships, skill-based activities and academic classes. He was a hands-on, caring superintendent who lifted everyone’s spirits in that dark, dismal prison. I organised certified barbering, decorative tiling and PVC furniture-making classes. At the graduation ceremony for certified barbering, students stood and performed Jah Cure’s Prison Walls. “I swear, I can be a better man,” they sang. Young men walked out of prison with skill for life. None of them went back into prison. After their first PVC furniture-making class, students said, “Miss, poor people can have pretty furniture too.” Running prison programmes can be a roller-coaster ride with exhilarating highs and depressing lows. Whenever a crisis occurs, programmes get put on hold. Public opinion shifts and momentum is lost. In programmes, we ride out those dips with commissioners who don’t support programmes and wait impatiently to resume work with commissioners who favour programmes. In between, we lose momentum and think about all the young men who could have been saved in prison programmes. Instead of soaring to new heights, I always feel like I’m in a rebuilding process. But I never give up hope. Prisons are a microcosm of TT society with impulsive men who took the wrong path. The redeemable ones exist along with innocent and incorrigible men who will never benefit from programmes The worst of the lot disrupt programmes, but they can’t derail them. It is difficult to be proactive in an environment where everyone is so reactive. The main reasons for crime in this country are poverty and irrelevant education. The men I taught who learned trades and ways to articulate their feelings thrived outside of prison – if they managed to stay alive. Many of them do agriculture. For those who feel that inmates don’t deserve the programmes they get in prison, I can only say that everyone in my Port of Spain Prison CXC English class won their cases or had them thrown out of court. What does that say about policing? My goal has always been to send young men back into the “free world” with confidence and relevant skills. My students learn to love reading. They will be better fathers than their own fathers. On that radio programme where a prison officer and I talked about the debate teams, the prison officer said none of the hundred-plus men and women who participated in those debates ended up in prison. I attribute that astounding statistic to young men learning ways to articulate their feelings. I often wonder how much of the crime we now face stems from the stagnant state of prisons during the covid19 pandemic when programmes completely shut down. Thankfully, we now have acting Prison Commissioner Carlos Corraspe who supports programmes. (Corraspe has accrued more than 200 days’ vacation leave and was sent on leave on August 7.) Unless the government puts mechanisms in place to maintain prison programmes that have practical and meaningful results, we will be riding that unsteady roller coaster forever. Programmes should be evaluated for their effectiveness, and not just stopped for personal reasons by a commissioner passing through the revolving door to sit in the commissioner’s seat. It always feels like prisons are run by personalities rather than policy. If that were not true, volunteers and NGOs would have a smoother ride. We wouldn’t live in fear of the next commissioner’s personality or constantly wonder when next we will be marginalised. We can’t judge prisons by the worst headlines. Prison is the last chance we have to change the course of many young men’s lives. It’s not just a place to lock people up and throw away the key. The post Why prison programmes are important appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.