BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - THE Superintendent of Prisons, Junie Hodge, believes that the private sector should begin looking at the possibility of hiring more rehabilitated ex-inmates who were imprisoned for various crimes committed in the Federation.
That suggestion came during an exclusive interview with SKNVibes, where Hodge pointed out that the prisoners have gone through a number of training programmes and should be given meaningful employment.
Further, he disclosed that not everybody is bad, but it could have been a simple mistake at the time that led to their incarceration.
Questioned on the stigma attached to person who would have been jailed for varying offences, he indicated that the time has come for people to move away from branding individuals as being criminals as some would have learnt a life skill while incarcerated.
“This is what we are working on, to move away from this stigma. Everybody here is a human being, everyone who would have walked this earth would have made a mistake before.
“All of us deserve a second chance. The Superintendent for Grenada made a mistake and he ended up spending three years in the facility that he was running. Lucky for him he won the case and government reinstate him in the position.”
He described life as being about creating opportunities while taking chances, noting that some may be lucky but others are not so fortunate.
“It is for us to work along with these individuals and encourage them for what they can do now and don’t stigmatise them for what they would have done in the past.”
Hodge, who was appointed Superintendent of Prisons earlier this year, stressed the fact that some of the convicts would have acted on the spur of the moment and, as such, they are now spending time for their actions, during which period they are engaged in corrective works.
“Some of them would have made decisions in the spur of the moment and that doesn’t mean that they are bad persons. Someone may have done you something and you may have shouted too hard to them. Some of them are here for debtors’ court and that doesn’t mean that they are bad,” the Superintendent noted.
For many years a number of the Federation’s young men have been incarcerated for major offences, and when released some of them became repeat offenders while other find jobs with minimum wages.
