The Government of Guyana has earmarked a sum of $88.9M to train prison inmates in areas such as anger management, literacy and numeracy, tailoring, among others, in an effort to reduce recidivism.
Senior Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh said during his Budget 2022 presentation yesterday, that transforming the penal institution into a correctional facility that reforms the mindsets of inmates to benefit all of society post-incarceration is a core objective.
Less than two weeks ago, 861 Mazaruni Prison inmates graduated from participation in entrepreneurship, anger management, carpentry and joinery, family reconciliation, tailoring, culinary arts, art and craft, cosmetology, barbering, crops husbandry and Veterinary Sciences. Among those who graced the stage all decked out in their gowns were high profile and special watch inmates. Convicted and remanded prisoners were also given an opportunity to participate in the training.
The government is also aiming to enhance prison infrastructure with the earmarked sum of $2.3B. This sum will be spent on transforming the Lusignan Prison into a modern facility to house both male and female prisoners including a vocational school, an infirmary annex, prison headquarters and
command centre.
$88.9M is quite a bit of money to spend trying to rehabilitate these prisoners. Most of them are hard-core criminals and will never change. These are the scum, the dregs, of society
Guyana should bring back capital punishment.
The Human Rights society will be screaming, but the majority of these prisoners are not human.