ICT equipment donated to GPS to help reform prisoners, digitise data

The Attorney General’s Chambers has donated assorted electronic equipment to the Guyana Prison Service as part of its mandate to help promote information and communications technology (ICT) education in the penitentiaries.
Further, the gesture is to lend support to the plans of the prison service to improve the electronic gathering of criminal and other information to gradually move away from the manual inputting and retrieval of information related to the criminal justice system.

The items, which included 100 desktop computers, 10 laptop computers, four Wi-Fi routers, four laserjet printers, and five projectors with screens, were handed over on Monday.
In giving the gadgets, Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, urged the prison to take good care of the devices to ensure longevity and to use them for their intended purpose.
Nandlall explained that the criminal justice system has many important agencies under its umbrella, including the Judiciary, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the Guyana Police Force (GPF), and the Guyana Prison Service (GPS).
According to the Senior Counsel, the donation is part of the Support for the Criminal Justice System (SCJS) Programme which is funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and being executed by the Attorney General’s Chambers. He said that the core objective of the SCJS programme is to reduce the prison population. And this, he highlighted, includes the exploration of avenues other than custodial sentences as a sanction for the commission of crimes.
“The project has a legislative component…out of that we have produced the Bail Act, the removal of custodial sentence on small quantities of marijuana and cocaine, the exploration of sentences alternative to custodial sentences, sentencing guidelines, the abolition of preliminary inquiries in criminal matters, amendments to the plea bargaining legislation, the overhaul of a set of archaic offences going back to colonial times which have become completely redundant.”
While noting that the GPS is a central part of the criminal justice system, Nandlall pointed out that with the way things are evolving, there is a move away from punitive sanctions and a concentration on the rehabilitation of the offender and exploring restorative justice.
He added, “The Prison Service requires the ability to rehabilitate, reorient the perpetrator or the convict and prepare that person for a new beginning when they are released from prison. That cannot be done if the prison is not equipped with the hardware and the facilities to allow that type of programmatic development to take place so that the inmates can benefit.”
Under the programme, the AG said that the mental health of prisoners will also be examined. “We are working to improve mental health facilities in the prison because a large number of the prison population, they suffer from various illnesses which include mental health issues.”
Meanwhile, Director of Prisons Nicklon Elliot expressed that he was pleased to accept the donation and assured that the equipment would be used to make prisoners “marketable” when they are released from prison. This, he noted, is something the GPS would continue to strive for.
“Last year, we would have trained 1400 persons in different skill areas. And this year, we are seeking to ensure that all categories of prisoners are exposed to the various types of training programmes. Our general focus will be towards addressing holistically the rehabilitation efforts in the prison and externally to promote the reintegration aspect because we recognise that the stigma and discrimination are still there…”
Elliot noted that the GPS’s rehabilitation programmes have contributed to a drop in the recidivism rate which has decreased from 13 per cent in 2021 to 10 per cent in 2022. (G1)