–Guyana Prison Service Officers Conference

The Guyana Prison Service (GPS) Senior Officers Conference opened at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre today, with correctional officials from around the region in attendance and President Dr. Irfaan Ali charting the way forward for the prison service.

The President stressed the need for more strategies to steer potential offenders away from the path of incarceration

To develop these prison avoidance strategies, President and Commander in Chief Dr. Irfaan Ali indicated that a committee of experienced persons will be set up to examine this and other issues.

“In the coming weeks, I will be launching a high-powered group that will look not only at the integration of our system but will also be taking the lead on everything I speak of,” he said.

President Ali further warned that criminal networks are looking at potential recruitment grounds and targeting vulnerable groups such as school dropouts, persons with trauma and violent households, those who lack positive role models and stigmatized communities.

As such, prison avoidance and data analysis will be instrumental in heading off this threat, even from the teenage years.

“We have to get into our secondary schools. We have a pandemic of gangs in the secondary schools across the region. Let’s not shy away from it. We must get into those schools, into those communities, into those homes,” he emphasised.

Even as efforts continue to steer youths away from prison, the president assured that investments into the prisons will continue.

So far, the government in conjunction with the Guyana Prison Service and other groups have long been making progress steering youths away from crime.

The Men on Mission have also been working alongside youth, showing them a positive path to becoming productive citizens.

These efforts have all contributed to a recidivism rate of 18 per cent- one of the lowest in the Caribbean.