The Bahamas Department of Corrections held its third in a series of public town hall meetings on proposed legislation to offer inmates parole or conditional release from prison.  The meeting was held at the Anatol Rodgers High School on Friday.

The Minister of National Security was in attendance at the meeting where he gave remarks and fielded questions from attendees who raised issues such as the legal length of a life sentence, inmates job responsibilities and the need for a guardian for paroled inmates with mental issues.

The Hon. Wayne Munroe responded saying, “in order to go on day parole now, the equivalent of it, their will be businesses who contact the correctional facility and say they’re willing to take inmates on parole.  There are certain industries that are set up within corrections, so right now the correctional facility makes all of the license plates.  For short sentences there is no sentence plan and so there is no application for correctional officers to address people on short sentences.  They will be managed in the community.  You now intend to use suspended sentences where you don’t just go to jail for five years in the beginning, we sentence it to you and we tell you if you behave for three you ain’ ga go.  Now the expectation is unless somebody has a burning desire to go to jail they behave for three years.”

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