Pres Ali announces “prison avoidance system” to steer youths away from crime

…warns that growing “pandemic” of gangs in secondary schools must be addressed

President Dr Irfaan Ali on Monday announced an ambitious plan to develop a “prison avoidance system” aimed at preventing individuals, particularly young people, from entering the criminal justice system. The announcement was made during the Senior Officers’ Conference of the Guyana Prison Service (GPS), where the Head of State delivered a detailed vision linking prison reform to national security, youth development and community transformation.

Addressing senior officers at the at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), President Ali emphasised that the prison service must move beyond rehabilitation and adopt a proactive approach to prevent crime at its roots. “We talk about rehabilitation, which is important, but before we get to prison, how do we avoid getting there?” he stated.

Growing “pandemic” of gangs
Speaking about the changing environment in which young people are growing up, the President noted that increased access to technology and connectivity with criminal networks present new challenges for crime prevention. “Given the changing environment in which our young people are growing up… their access through technology, the greater connectivity with gangs and other forms of ill-conceived societal play, how do we address those?” To address these issues, the President announced the establishment of a specialised, high-powered team of experienced personnel that will lead the integration of a prison avoidance system.
“In the coming weeks, I will be launching a high-powered group of experienced persons that will look not only at the integration of our system, but that would also be taking the lead on everything I speak of this morning,” he revealed. He further warned that gangs are increasingly taking root in secondary schools across the region, describing the situation as a “pandemic” that requires urgent attention.
Ali stressed that addressing the problem must go beyond the classroom. Interventions, he said, must reach into communities and homes where young people are most vulnerable. “We have to take the bull by the horns. We have to get in our secondary schools. We have a pandemic of gangs in the secondary schools across the region now… we have to get into those schools, into those communities, into those homes,” the President told attendees. Ali highlighted the role of civil society, religious organisations and local leaders in helping to identify at-risk areas and youth who may be drawn into criminal activity.
He also pointed to the social conditions that often shape young people’s choices. Children growing up amid trauma, without positive role models or under the influence of gang leaders and drug lords are particularly at risk, he said. “If crime is normalised, that is going to be a learned behaviour. If violence is normalised, that is going to be a learned behaviour,” Ali warned. The President emphasised that preventing crime is just as important as enforcing the law. He said that building secure communities starts with helping youth make better choices early.
“This is not just about punishment; it is about prevention. Our first order of business in creating a secure country and community to avoid persons going down the wrong path,” he concluded. President Ali stressed the critical role of the prison service in Guyana’s national security framework. He highlighted the importance of a data-driven and integrated approach to crime prevention. With Guyana’s rapidly growing economy attracting criminal networks seeking new grounds, effective situational awareness is crucial. “As pressure grows in all the larger economies, criminal networks are pressed. When they’re pressed, they look for new grounds. We have to identify where those grounds are, and here in Guyana we know with the growth in the economy, there is a natural attraction”, he said.
“I hope that at this level we are having access to that data that allows us to do the analysis so that we can craft measures based on data, based on reality, based on the awareness of what surrounds us.” Another key focus of the President during his address on Monday was the identification of structural and societal issues that contribute to youth crime. Ali highlighted poverty, broken homes, lack of positive role models, school dropouts, substance abuse, mental health challenges and gang influence as major contributors. “Take, for example, education opportunities… substance abuse and mental health… social and environmental influences… stigma and barriers… learned behavioural patterns. These are some of the very challenges that we have to address,” he said. He cited the Men on Mission (MOM) programme as a model initiative that mentors young men in at-risk communities, helping them stay in school, build positive habits and develop leadership skills.
“We have three facilities where men are providing mentorship, doing the homework with the children, channeling their energy into positive things, including karate, yoga. We have been able to take hundreds of children who were dropouts and build them into a system, and some of them are now topping their classes.”

Ali emphasised that the positive influence of men in communities has eroded across the Caribbean, contributing to the rise in youth delinquency. He called for the restoration of mentorship and guidance to create structured paths away from crime. “In this region, the CARICOM region, for a very long time, we have not paid enough attention to men and the role of men and the responsibility of men in our society. Many young people today, they don’t have confidence because it has been eroded systemically”, he said.

Early intervention, mentorship
To guide prison service reform, President Ali outlined seven key principles: access, accountability, ability, agility, adaptability, affordability and awareness. “Everything we plan to do, we must afford to do it… it must have accountability built in every aspect of its work. The ability and agility to be flexible, to be nimble, to be operationally efficient, and that comes through training. It comes through access to opportunities.” The President also highlighted Government support for officers’ professional development, including scholarships, diplomas, degrees and postgraduate programmes, as well as a 40 per cent salary increase over five years and ongoing plans to ensure parity with regional counterparts. Ali emphasised that effective crime prevention requires community engagement, identifying societal influencers who can promote positive change. He urged officers and community leaders to harness creativity and connectivity to reach at-risk youth. “In every community, there is an influencer. How do we get to influencers who can be agents of positivity? In the prison service itself, do we have a system of analysing and identifying influencers that we can use as agents of change, agents of positivity?”
Highlighting systemic issues in education and substance abuse, Ali urged interventions at the school and community level. “Let us go into our school system, is there any structured approach in the curriculum or in the education system that deals with mental health and substance abuse other than a reference or one subject? This is a systemic issue… vaping is one of the biggest contributors to mental health challenges.” He emphasised that reducing youth crime requires early intervention, mentorship and the provision of education opportunities across Guyana and the CARICOM region, with programmes like Guyana Digital School making learning accessible to all children.