Strengthen community based correction system - President

*Integrate prison inmates, Govt officials into economic development

*Prisons should not be the place where thieves, looters are created

Chaminda PERERA

President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday stressed the importance of integrating the prison inmates and Government officials into the country’s economic development.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa

He said the community based correction system needs to be further strengthened to make the misguided people in prisons more productive to the society and the country at large.

President Rajapaksa was speaking at the progress review meeting of the Rehabilitation and Prison Reforms Ministry at Temple Trees Tuesday. President Rajapaksa ordered the officials to set up a Special Police Unit to arrest the vices and irregularities in Prisons.

Officials were also directed to formulate a special program for prison inmates welfare islandwide.

He was of the view that prisons should not be the place where thieves and looters are created. He said prisons have the responsibility of rehabilitating the people who have performed various anti-social activities. It was disclosed that the Government spends over Rs 9,000 for a prison inmate a month though they do not make any contribution towards the country’s economic uplift.

The officials pointed out that the Government succeeded in saving Rs 405 million during the last few years after the community based correction system came into being.

They said that a recent Ministry survey revealed that more than 88 percent of the population want the gallows reactivated in the country to arrest the crime wave and drug mafia.

It was also disclosed that 334 persons who were convicted of various crimes and drug trafficking are serving life-time imprisonment.

They said that these convicts are receiving preferential treatment.

President Rajapaksa added that enforcement of law should help reform the misguided people rather than creating them as people who hate the society.