but when I joined 27 years ago back in
January 1991 I still wish I fitted those
pants today but I don’t and under that
hat somewhere there is a full head of
hair back in January 1991 as a young
prison officer I was walking the
landings and I came across a young man
who was the same age as millions from
the same area as me he was in prison for
a minor theft and he had if such a thing
exists probably had a minor drug habit I
locked him up for two years something
like that probably got to know him quite
well
so when you’re working with prisoners
you kind of see them 39 hours a week you
get to know them so you spend more time
with him than your family sometimes but
but I didn’t see that man again for 20
21 years something like that
in which time I was a governor grade in
the UK so I was responsible for my own
my own prison I was doing my inspections
I was walking around and this this young
man approached me he said all right mr.
foot how are you and kind of had a log
and and I remembered who he was it
didn’t quite look the same I mean by the
fact that he was 20 years older he
didn’t quite look the same in a
conversation he he told me that he had
been in prison for 15 of the 20 years
that had gone by he was now serving a
long sentence for armed robbery he had a
serious heroin addiction his appearance
had changed because he was fairly
ravaged by that heroin addiction to me
as a corrections of Prisons professional
we failed Batman we failed you we failed
everybody 15 years in prison in the UK
costs a lot of money a heroin addiction
everything else that that man had been
through cost a lot of money and the
reality was 20 years ago
we didn’t have a lot of the things a lot
of the interventions and things that I’m
going to talk about today well as I said
it’s a good news story because
everything that we had in the UK when I
left four years ago we now have in the
Virgin Islands and I’m just going to go
through and give you some examples of
some of those things so what is
rehabilitation what is rehabilitation
from it from a custodial point of view
well the first thing you’ve got to do an
important thing that you’ve got to do is
you’ve got to work out what
rehabilitation methods you need to use
for that particular individual and we do
that using a thing called a sentence
plan I’ll give you an example so they’d
say you understand what I mean somebody
comes in for theft
why have they stolen as that person
stolen because they can’t afford to eat
because that’s really simple if
somebody’s stealing because they can’t
afford to wait they haven’t got a roof
over their head get them a job so give
them employability skills get them a job
when they go out they can earn a wage
they’re not going to steal again well
they might be him still for theft but
the reason why they were stealing is
because they’ve got a serious drug
addiction that’s a whole different
process go and get him a job well he’s
still gonna take whatever drug you use
and then he’s gonna get sacked and he’s
not gonna have a job and then he’s gonna
go back stealing to pay for his drug
addiction so the reality of the sentence
plans we direct to a different
intervention which would in this case be
substance misuse services counseling
medication and all those things get the
man clean getting back out on the street
fingers crossed he won’t commit crime
again so the sentence plan directs to
eight different eight different areas
which I call pathways I don’t call it
pathways but the UK Prison Service calls
you pathways I’ve stolen it
and these are the areas that we we look
or these these are the interventions we
look to put in place through the
sentence plan to try and reduce
reoffending so the first one you can see
on the list is cognitive thinking skills
that’s the expensive one because that’s
programs and the things that you see
psychologists prison officers and
counselors doing it in in prisons in the
Virgin Islands we have a number of
cognitive thinking skills programs we’ve
got victim awareness we’ve got sex
offender treatment programs we’ve got
enhanced thinking skills we have the
full range of things that you would
expect to see you know in a far bigger
prison service what all those programs
do they aim to do is to make the
prisoner look at the impact that the
crime he has committed has had on
society on his family on him his victims
and it gives them coping skills because
there’s a lot of things that we take for
granted so when you’re put in a position
where you have to make a decision and
that decision might be to break the law
or that decision might be not to break
the law most people in this room I hope
fingers crossed
would make the right decision we haven’t
all been given those skills from the
start in life because we all come from
different backgrounds and different
things happen and so the aim of
cognitive thinking skills programs are
to give prisoners some of the strategies
the skills and the decision-making
skills to make the right decision when
they’re put in those positions family
families a huge one for the Caribbean
it’s one that’s incredibly different to
what I’m used to for my previous service
finally in the Virgin Islands is massive
your family’s important your children
are important because they give support
they give structure they give
self-confidence
and they also help give direction I hope
so
we have a number of release programs our
release can come in two ways a president
can come out with the prison officer or
a prisoner can be released for the day
on his own but that is a risk assessed
process so a prisoner has to be in for
an offense that is suitable if they’re
going to go out without without an
escort now we still have something here
that has gone on for for a number of
years I think it’s an old throwback for
some of the overseas territories but we
have a thing called Christmas leave and
what that means is prisoners can apply
to go home for Christmas Day and they
apply through me for my recommendation
to the governor and the governor will
give approval as I say this is a risk
assess process but don’t just let
anybody do that so don’t worry on
Christmas Day we don’t just let
everybody go out through the door this
year 15 people
15 15 people applied from 15 for
Christmas release four people got
Christmas release place to tell you that
they all came back early and nobody
committed any crimes well the power of
this kind of program which doesn’t have
as much impact where I am from from from
the UK culture but the power of this
kind of thing sort of was struck home to
me when I was stood in road town
wholesaling per se that was in right way
with my wife and three kids minding my
own business doing some shopping and all
of a sudden from the end of the aisle
this lady starts out in my name so I’ve
never seen it before in my life and then
she started running down the aisle
towards me and then UK I’m gonna start
running the other way
well this is the Caribbean and things
are slightly different so I thought so
because everybody does kind of know who
i am because my picture ends up in the
press quite a bit but this lady’s
running down the aisle towards we going
mr. Foote mr. faught mr. Foote and she
got to a sort of four feet away she kind
of let through the air through her arms
around me and planted a big kiss on my
cheek so I’m not even looking at her at
this point I’m looking at my wife go and
I don’t know I don’t know who this lady
is I have no idea darling so and she’s
going to thank you thank you thank you
it turns out that I’ve recommended that
her son goes home for Christmas Day and
he or that act made a huge difference
for her it made her Christmas he’d
probably made her year because she had
not had her son with her for four years
the impact of his family’s relationship
through that I mean I think he said to
me was it made him think he didn’t
realize the impact that it had had on
his parents on his mother I suppose you
could say as a mother as a victim of his
crime at the end of the day that prison
has gone on to work out and he’s been on
half a work release program so he goes
out Monday to Friday he’s due for
release soon and fingers crossed he will
keep the job that he’s got he’ll go back
into the community you know work hard
and his mother will never scare the life
out of my wife again so health and
well-being it is it is a huge thing for
all of us but with rehabilitation health
and well-being is about self confidence
health and well-being is about it if you
feel well in yourself if you’ve had
addictions problems alcohol problems and
alcohol problems are probably more
severe here than drug problems if you
get yourself clean and clear and you
feel better about yourself you are you
are
far more likely to feel more
self-confident and I’m going to come on
to self-confidence as a topic in in line
with education in a minute so they you
understand how that ties in finance in
debt this was probably the last piece of
the rehabilitation spectrum that we got
in place and it surprised me on an
island that’s got a huge financial
services industry and more banks than
you can shake a stick out but they
proved quite difficult to get in place
well finance in debt from a prisoner’s
point of view really it’s really simple
I released a prisoner 150 dollars in his
back pocket they all go home at 8
o’clock in the morning just so generally
go home at 8 o’clock in the one so I
released him with a hundred and fifty
dollars in his back pocket and he hits
the street and he sees his mates and he
has a few beers you guys some fried
chicken he does something else
blah by 4 o’clock on the afternoon only
spending 250 dollars but he’s hungry
what does he do steal something from you
if I teach him about proper money
management if we’d like to try and get
him a bank account and he walks out the
door 150 dollars but 130 dollars are in
the bank and he’s got $20 in his back
pocket and he understands about
budgeting yeah he goes and sees mates
cuz he’s been in prison for however long
he has 20 dollars worth of chicken and
beer as he’s not gonna drive from the
block all the way down to town put his
card in the cash machine come back up so
that night he’s got money to buy food so
he isn’t stealing from you money’s
management is incredibly important he
wouldn’t realize how many offenders are
not taught how to manage their money how
to manage their finances and they live
hand-to-mouth education education is
crucial certainly with the young men
about 1/3 of all prisoners in custody
here and this is comparative around the
world actually so don’t look at the
Virgin Islands when I give you this
statistic and think that it’s any
different to anywhere else but about a
third of young men in custody here do
not have a standard of numeracy or
literacy that is equivalent to a child
leaving primary school it’s a hell of a
statistic it’s an international
statistic it’s a huge problem around the
world it’s not just for here as I’ve
said you’ve gotta think about that how
that impacts a person because I mean
everybody there’s kind of a loner around
the room but if you can’t read and write
and you go into the road town hall cell
and there’s a pretty girl behind the
till you’re not going to go up to her
and say can you tell me how much this
costs because I can’t read okay tell me
what this is because I’m looking for big
beans I don’t know I’m looking for big
beans can you tell me what this is
you’re not gonna do that you’re not
gonna be embarrassed so you’re gonna buy
what you know well if you watch
basketball Doritos are probably an
advert so you know what a packet of
Doritos looks like because you’ve seen
the crisps come out then whatever else
are you gonna eat a packet of Doritos
she’s not particularly healthy I’ve told
you I’m gonna link it to health and
well-being in a minute well the other
thing is you’re not gonna put yourself
in a lot of those social situations
you’re not gonna go and apply for a job
because you don’t want that
embarrassment you’re gonna stick with
that peer group that led you to commit
crime because they accept you and
they’re happy that you can’t read or
write or you can add up or whatever the
case may be
which limits your ability to move on the
good news is we have mandatory education
we assess every single prisoner now who
comes through the door we do a thing
called a rat test and we have a look at
their standard of literacy in numeracy
and they are placed in education classes
in accordance with that and we’ve now
had two prisoners since that started
they’ve gained their high their high
school certificate and that’s
That’s not me that that the government
funded that and we have a good teacher
so I have to say and they put the effort
in so but it but it’s a big thing
because that ties into a lot of the
other factors that I’m going to come to
and we’ve talked about because they’re
better able to engage in cognitive
thinking skills courses they’re better
able to get jobs and all the other bits
of pieces and they can read the lease if
they want to go and rent our homes
education one of the things that that
always surprises me though it is the
level of people in custody who who who’s
educational standard is it a tertiary
level as I would say so what that means
is it’s at a degree level
I’ve got prisoners asking to do degrees
so we have been fortunate we’ve been
given an internet connection for free
I’m not going to say the company’s name
I don’t think this is the environment
for advertising but one of the local
companies has given us and internet
connection for free and there are other
agencies looking at helping those pay
and provide prisoners with the chance to
their online degrees and other things
they’re all prisoners serving longer
sentences so so we’ve covered the full
gamut of educational programs inside of
the prison and we also have vocational
training so I’ll come back to vocational
training with employment housing and
let’s just show you some statistics
these these statistics are they call key
performance indicators or key
performance targets in prisons across
Western Europe and we there are more
than just these three you have a each
prison governor has a number of targets
that they have to achieve so what this
is saying in the case of accommodation
the bottom one is everybody who is
released from your prison or of of
everybody who is released from your
prison 80% need to go into accommodation
sounds quite a high statistic it sounds
quite reasonable
in the UK we have a thing called
rotation hostels so risky prisoners I
came out slightly wrong but prisoners
who are high-risk who are in for serious
offenses they would go into probation
hostels that’s supervised by the
Probation Service on release there are
housing associations sheltered
accommodation there are all kinds of
government funded agencies so probably
from my memory half of the people that
come out of prison go into some form of
government-funded accommodation so the
real figure of people going into their
own houses is probably about 40% how
many people from the Virgin Islands who
are released back into the community do
you think of accommodation I nearly fell
off my chair I’ll stay in misery I
nearly fell off my chair because I
wasn’t expecting it to be a high figure
90 percent 90 percent everybody who I
released from prison goes into
accommodation that’s the community
that’s family you can see how a lot of
these things do interlink as well but
that’s community that’s family that’s
something that we don’t have in the
United Kingdom and it was he it was a
great concern to me because things are
very expensive here I know quite how are
we going to achieve some of those things
but he wasn’t actually something we
needed to achieve the community was
achieving that for us anyway and that
that is a fantastic thing released from
prison into employment our figure says
35 percent and just so you clearly
released from prison here if every of
every four prisoners released one is
probably deported so 75 percent of
everybody who is up there has rights and
today’s here those statistics are
slightly skewed because you got a lot of
prisoners in for fines and other bits
and pieces that create a churn but
so release from prison into employment
in the UK and across Western Europe 35%
I’m not going to get you to shout it out
again but it’s a it’s a phenomenal
figure again 95% of everybody who walks
out the door has got a job it’s a
phenomenal figure we still have
employment advocacy because it’s very
important we have prisons who don’t have
work we have prisoners who who maybe
can’t go back to their their community
because some of the communities are as
small as a lady from Yas van Dyke asking
me about how many prisoners I’ve got
from there and sometimes we have to look
at moving prisoners to different areas
to try and give them another chance and
so we have employment advocacy services
and we do look at a lot of the fine
defaulters and whatever else whilst
they’re in prison getting the employment
so they go out to work Monday to Friday
they spend their evenings and their
weekends in prison but they paid a fine
off because they’re paying for their
kids and that’s important but then they
get out of prison quicker which means
your taxes are not spent on keeping them
in the jail which is common sense and
that’s part of the employment habit
advocacy role you can see there’s if
there’s a distinct and huge difference
and that difference is attributable
solely to the strength of the community
here one of the other key things about
looking at employment for prisoners is
that you try and match the skills that
we teach them in prison with jobs that
are available in the market here in
Ottawa and the reality is there’s no
point me trying to teach people to work
in the financial services industry so
with a criminal record I’m not quite
sure you’re going to get a job well we
have a huge tourist industry so food
handling certificates food hygiene
certificates all those kind of things
are all incredibly useful working in the
construction industry is also a huge
employer and so as part of the education
program we have
vocational training a vocational
training we do electrics we do woodwork
we do plumbing we do tailoring the next
time you see me walking around in a nice
uniform that’s made at the prison what
we try to tailor the training and the
skills that prisoners get inside of the
establishment but with the employment
market that we have in the Virgin
Islands and that’s also proven
successful even though most prisoners
are offered jobs when they go back out
with their family and with their friends
and whatever else one of the issues that
we have is about how we break that cycle
of offending and one of the huge
differences that I see is how the
tightness of those communities makes it
very difficult to some of the prisoners
to break away from the peer groups that
have encouraged them in the past with
the criminal activities in the UK again
it’s really simple it’s really simple
you draw a line around an area so you
can’t go in there so a sex offender take
a sex offender as it as it as an example
you can say legitimately you’re not
going near a school because you’ve
offended against children so you can’t
go with 150 metres of a school I don’t
know what that is in defeats I’m sorry
if they need to go back to prison
that’s it done and dusted well you can’t
drive from one of the Tortola to the
other without going back to school so we
can’t do those kind of things so we have
to find a solution to try and break some
of those cycles I’m not solution ease
education and that solution is not
education in the prison that solution is
education with children that are coming
into conflict with the law at the
earliest opportunity and again this
community provides a huge amount
at different agencies and people who are
interested we’ve got them the youth
empowerment project we’ve got Operation
Lionheart
we’ve got follow the movement we’ve got
the church church is fantastic
talking about employability and skills
we we needed a restroom in the school
but the prison we needed a restroom
because the juveniles who have a
mandatory education when we have to
youth announcer because they’re very
clever they’d already worked it out that
they had to go all the way back to their
cell to go to the toilet and it was a
great distance it’s from one side of the
prison to the other almost and through
three gates so the protests have gone to
the toilet takes an hour he got him out
of class for an hour there’s a few
teachers out there you know how big an
opportunity that is and by the time he
got back another one will be going so it
was taking them out of class far too
much so we said we needed a bathroom
well the church gave me the money as
soon as we asked the church provided the
money and then a prisoner sat down he
did the drawings another prisoner sat
down he did the quantity surveying
another prisoner sat down I did this
another way and all of a sudden I had a
building with a restroom in it
and electrics and a roof and everything
it’s all a came through I didn’t do
anything I just said I’d like to do that
and boom those are the skills that we
have in the prison and those are the
skills that some of the prisoners have
picked up through some of these courses
and the financing that’s come out of the
community so what I would like to see
and what I hope to encourage us to do is
that we have a system where children who
come into conflict with the law are
referred into these agencies because
these agencies start to work together
and it’s not just the agencies who
volunteer but the police present service
the Probation Service Ministry of
Education Ministry of Health and Social
Development all of us and so these
children are referred in and we look at
the services that we have across the
island at the schools or the churches
everywhere and we put the best
intervention we can in place at the
earliest opportunity because at the
moment we’re all working in silos
and if we can do that then we can start
a wedgy Kate these children these boys
at the earliest age that it’s okay to
stand up on your own it’s okay to say to
your peer groups no I’m not gonna get
involved in that I don’t want to do it I
want to move and do something else it’s
alright for me to make this decision and
maybe just maybe but everything that
we’ve done here and everything that the
community has to offer we will have an
impact on recidivism on rates of
reoffending in the Virgin Islands this I
think that we’ve put in place at the
prison will will reap rewards a lot of
it is very new and it’s going to take
four or five years before the statistics
bear out any difference between four
years ago when I started and the
minister and I looked at the
rehabilitation programs but but I am
confident that we have made a difference
and I am confident that we will reduce
rates of reoffending across the Virgin
Islands
you
January 1991 I still wish I fitted those
pants today but I don’t and under that
hat somewhere there is a full head of
hair back in January 1991 as a young
prison officer I was walking the
landings and I came across a young man
who was the same age as millions from
the same area as me he was in prison for
a minor theft and he had if such a thing
exists probably had a minor drug habit I
locked him up for two years something
like that probably got to know him quite
well
so when you’re working with prisoners
you kind of see them 39 hours a week you
get to know them so you spend more time
with him than your family sometimes but
but I didn’t see that man again for 20
21 years something like that
in which time I was a governor grade in
the UK so I was responsible for my own
my own prison I was doing my inspections
I was walking around and this this young
man approached me he said all right mr.
foot how are you and kind of had a log
and and I remembered who he was it
didn’t quite look the same I mean by the
fact that he was 20 years older he
didn’t quite look the same in a
conversation he he told me that he had
been in prison for 15 of the 20 years
that had gone by he was now serving a
long sentence for armed robbery he had a
serious heroin addiction his appearance
had changed because he was fairly
ravaged by that heroin addiction to me
as a corrections of Prisons professional
we failed Batman we failed you we failed
everybody 15 years in prison in the UK
costs a lot of money a heroin addiction
everything else that that man had been
through cost a lot of money and the
reality was 20 years ago
we didn’t have a lot of the things a lot
of the interventions and things that I’m
going to talk about today well as I said
it’s a good news story because
everything that we had in the UK when I
left four years ago we now have in the
Virgin Islands and I’m just going to go
through and give you some examples of
some of those things so what is
rehabilitation what is rehabilitation
from it from a custodial point of view
well the first thing you’ve got to do an
important thing that you’ve got to do is
you’ve got to work out what
rehabilitation methods you need to use
for that particular individual and we do
that using a thing called a sentence
plan I’ll give you an example so they’d
say you understand what I mean somebody
comes in for theft
why have they stolen as that person
stolen because they can’t afford to eat
because that’s really simple if
somebody’s stealing because they can’t
afford to wait they haven’t got a roof
over their head get them a job so give
them employability skills get them a job
when they go out they can earn a wage
they’re not going to steal again well
they might be him still for theft but
the reason why they were stealing is
because they’ve got a serious drug
addiction that’s a whole different
process go and get him a job well he’s
still gonna take whatever drug you use
and then he’s gonna get sacked and he’s
not gonna have a job and then he’s gonna
go back stealing to pay for his drug
addiction so the reality of the sentence
plans we direct to a different
intervention which would in this case be
substance misuse services counseling
medication and all those things get the
man clean getting back out on the street
fingers crossed he won’t commit crime
again so the sentence plan directs to
eight different eight different areas
which I call pathways I don’t call it
pathways but the UK Prison Service calls
you pathways I’ve stolen it
and these are the areas that we we look
or these these are the interventions we
look to put in place through the
sentence plan to try and reduce
reoffending so the first one you can see
on the list is cognitive thinking skills
that’s the expensive one because that’s
programs and the things that you see
psychologists prison officers and
counselors doing it in in prisons in the
Virgin Islands we have a number of
cognitive thinking skills programs we’ve
got victim awareness we’ve got sex
offender treatment programs we’ve got
enhanced thinking skills we have the
full range of things that you would
expect to see you know in a far bigger
prison service what all those programs
do they aim to do is to make the
prisoner look at the impact that the
crime he has committed has had on
society on his family on him his victims
and it gives them coping skills because
there’s a lot of things that we take for
granted so when you’re put in a position
where you have to make a decision and
that decision might be to break the law
or that decision might be not to break
the law most people in this room I hope
fingers crossed
would make the right decision we haven’t
all been given those skills from the
start in life because we all come from
different backgrounds and different
things happen and so the aim of
cognitive thinking skills programs are
to give prisoners some of the strategies
the skills and the decision-making
skills to make the right decision when
they’re put in those positions family
families a huge one for the Caribbean
it’s one that’s incredibly different to
what I’m used to for my previous service
finally in the Virgin Islands is massive
your family’s important your children
are important because they give support
they give structure they give
self-confidence
and they also help give direction I hope
so
we have a number of release programs our
release can come in two ways a president
can come out with the prison officer or
a prisoner can be released for the day
on his own but that is a risk assessed
process so a prisoner has to be in for
an offense that is suitable if they’re
going to go out without without an
escort now we still have something here
that has gone on for for a number of
years I think it’s an old throwback for
some of the overseas territories but we
have a thing called Christmas leave and
what that means is prisoners can apply
to go home for Christmas Day and they
apply through me for my recommendation
to the governor and the governor will
give approval as I say this is a risk
assess process but don’t just let
anybody do that so don’t worry on
Christmas Day we don’t just let
everybody go out through the door this
year 15 people
15 15 people applied from 15 for
Christmas release four people got
Christmas release place to tell you that
they all came back early and nobody
committed any crimes well the power of
this kind of program which doesn’t have
as much impact where I am from from from
the UK culture but the power of this
kind of thing sort of was struck home to
me when I was stood in road town
wholesaling per se that was in right way
with my wife and three kids minding my
own business doing some shopping and all
of a sudden from the end of the aisle
this lady starts out in my name so I’ve
never seen it before in my life and then
she started running down the aisle
towards me and then UK I’m gonna start
running the other way
well this is the Caribbean and things
are slightly different so I thought so
because everybody does kind of know who
i am because my picture ends up in the
press quite a bit but this lady’s
running down the aisle towards we going
mr. Foote mr. faught mr. Foote and she
got to a sort of four feet away she kind
of let through the air through her arms
around me and planted a big kiss on my
cheek so I’m not even looking at her at
this point I’m looking at my wife go and
I don’t know I don’t know who this lady
is I have no idea darling so and she’s
going to thank you thank you thank you
it turns out that I’ve recommended that
her son goes home for Christmas Day and
he or that act made a huge difference
for her it made her Christmas he’d
probably made her year because she had
not had her son with her for four years
the impact of his family’s relationship
through that I mean I think he said to
me was it made him think he didn’t
realize the impact that it had had on
his parents on his mother I suppose you
could say as a mother as a victim of his
crime at the end of the day that prison
has gone on to work out and he’s been on
half a work release program so he goes
out Monday to Friday he’s due for
release soon and fingers crossed he will
keep the job that he’s got he’ll go back
into the community you know work hard
and his mother will never scare the life
out of my wife again so health and
well-being it is it is a huge thing for
all of us but with rehabilitation health
and well-being is about self confidence
health and well-being is about it if you
feel well in yourself if you’ve had
addictions problems alcohol problems and
alcohol problems are probably more
severe here than drug problems if you
get yourself clean and clear and you
feel better about yourself you are you
are
far more likely to feel more
self-confident and I’m going to come on
to self-confidence as a topic in in line
with education in a minute so they you
understand how that ties in finance in
debt this was probably the last piece of
the rehabilitation spectrum that we got
in place and it surprised me on an
island that’s got a huge financial
services industry and more banks than
you can shake a stick out but they
proved quite difficult to get in place
well finance in debt from a prisoner’s
point of view really it’s really simple
I released a prisoner 150 dollars in his
back pocket they all go home at 8
o’clock in the morning just so generally
go home at 8 o’clock in the one so I
released him with a hundred and fifty
dollars in his back pocket and he hits
the street and he sees his mates and he
has a few beers you guys some fried
chicken he does something else
blah by 4 o’clock on the afternoon only
spending 250 dollars but he’s hungry
what does he do steal something from you
if I teach him about proper money
management if we’d like to try and get
him a bank account and he walks out the
door 150 dollars but 130 dollars are in
the bank and he’s got $20 in his back
pocket and he understands about
budgeting yeah he goes and sees mates
cuz he’s been in prison for however long
he has 20 dollars worth of chicken and
beer as he’s not gonna drive from the
block all the way down to town put his
card in the cash machine come back up so
that night he’s got money to buy food so
he isn’t stealing from you money’s
management is incredibly important he
wouldn’t realize how many offenders are
not taught how to manage their money how
to manage their finances and they live
hand-to-mouth education education is
crucial certainly with the young men
about 1/3 of all prisoners in custody
here and this is comparative around the
world actually so don’t look at the
Virgin Islands when I give you this
statistic and think that it’s any
different to anywhere else but about a
third of young men in custody here do
not have a standard of numeracy or
literacy that is equivalent to a child
leaving primary school it’s a hell of a
statistic it’s an international
statistic it’s a huge problem around the
world it’s not just for here as I’ve
said you’ve gotta think about that how
that impacts a person because I mean
everybody there’s kind of a loner around
the room but if you can’t read and write
and you go into the road town hall cell
and there’s a pretty girl behind the
till you’re not going to go up to her
and say can you tell me how much this
costs because I can’t read okay tell me
what this is because I’m looking for big
beans I don’t know I’m looking for big
beans can you tell me what this is
you’re not gonna do that you’re not
gonna be embarrassed so you’re gonna buy
what you know well if you watch
basketball Doritos are probably an
advert so you know what a packet of
Doritos looks like because you’ve seen
the crisps come out then whatever else
are you gonna eat a packet of Doritos
she’s not particularly healthy I’ve told
you I’m gonna link it to health and
well-being in a minute well the other
thing is you’re not gonna put yourself
in a lot of those social situations
you’re not gonna go and apply for a job
because you don’t want that
embarrassment you’re gonna stick with
that peer group that led you to commit
crime because they accept you and
they’re happy that you can’t read or
write or you can add up or whatever the
case may be
which limits your ability to move on the
good news is we have mandatory education
we assess every single prisoner now who
comes through the door we do a thing
called a rat test and we have a look at
their standard of literacy in numeracy
and they are placed in education classes
in accordance with that and we’ve now
had two prisoners since that started
they’ve gained their high their high
school certificate and that’s
That’s not me that that the government
funded that and we have a good teacher
so I have to say and they put the effort
in so but it but it’s a big thing
because that ties into a lot of the
other factors that I’m going to come to
and we’ve talked about because they’re
better able to engage in cognitive
thinking skills courses they’re better
able to get jobs and all the other bits
of pieces and they can read the lease if
they want to go and rent our homes
education one of the things that that
always surprises me though it is the
level of people in custody who who who’s
educational standard is it a tertiary
level as I would say so what that means
is it’s at a degree level
I’ve got prisoners asking to do degrees
so we have been fortunate we’ve been
given an internet connection for free
I’m not going to say the company’s name
I don’t think this is the environment
for advertising but one of the local
companies has given us and internet
connection for free and there are other
agencies looking at helping those pay
and provide prisoners with the chance to
their online degrees and other things
they’re all prisoners serving longer
sentences so so we’ve covered the full
gamut of educational programs inside of
the prison and we also have vocational
training so I’ll come back to vocational
training with employment housing and
let’s just show you some statistics
these these statistics are they call key
performance indicators or key
performance targets in prisons across
Western Europe and we there are more
than just these three you have a each
prison governor has a number of targets
that they have to achieve so what this
is saying in the case of accommodation
the bottom one is everybody who is
released from your prison or of of
everybody who is released from your
prison 80% need to go into accommodation
sounds quite a high statistic it sounds
quite reasonable
in the UK we have a thing called
rotation hostels so risky prisoners I
came out slightly wrong but prisoners
who are high-risk who are in for serious
offenses they would go into probation
hostels that’s supervised by the
Probation Service on release there are
housing associations sheltered
accommodation there are all kinds of
government funded agencies so probably
from my memory half of the people that
come out of prison go into some form of
government-funded accommodation so the
real figure of people going into their
own houses is probably about 40% how
many people from the Virgin Islands who
are released back into the community do
you think of accommodation I nearly fell
off my chair I’ll stay in misery I
nearly fell off my chair because I
wasn’t expecting it to be a high figure
90 percent 90 percent everybody who I
released from prison goes into
accommodation that’s the community
that’s family you can see how a lot of
these things do interlink as well but
that’s community that’s family that’s
something that we don’t have in the
United Kingdom and it was he it was a
great concern to me because things are
very expensive here I know quite how are
we going to achieve some of those things
but he wasn’t actually something we
needed to achieve the community was
achieving that for us anyway and that
that is a fantastic thing released from
prison into employment our figure says
35 percent and just so you clearly
released from prison here if every of
every four prisoners released one is
probably deported so 75 percent of
everybody who is up there has rights and
today’s here those statistics are
slightly skewed because you got a lot of
prisoners in for fines and other bits
and pieces that create a churn but
so release from prison into employment
in the UK and across Western Europe 35%
I’m not going to get you to shout it out
again but it’s a it’s a phenomenal
figure again 95% of everybody who walks
out the door has got a job it’s a
phenomenal figure we still have
employment advocacy because it’s very
important we have prisons who don’t have
work we have prisoners who who maybe
can’t go back to their their community
because some of the communities are as
small as a lady from Yas van Dyke asking
me about how many prisoners I’ve got
from there and sometimes we have to look
at moving prisoners to different areas
to try and give them another chance and
so we have employment advocacy services
and we do look at a lot of the fine
defaulters and whatever else whilst
they’re in prison getting the employment
so they go out to work Monday to Friday
they spend their evenings and their
weekends in prison but they paid a fine
off because they’re paying for their
kids and that’s important but then they
get out of prison quicker which means
your taxes are not spent on keeping them
in the jail which is common sense and
that’s part of the employment habit
advocacy role you can see there’s if
there’s a distinct and huge difference
and that difference is attributable
solely to the strength of the community
here one of the other key things about
looking at employment for prisoners is
that you try and match the skills that
we teach them in prison with jobs that
are available in the market here in
Ottawa and the reality is there’s no
point me trying to teach people to work
in the financial services industry so
with a criminal record I’m not quite
sure you’re going to get a job well we
have a huge tourist industry so food
handling certificates food hygiene
certificates all those kind of things
are all incredibly useful working in the
construction industry is also a huge
employer and so as part of the education
program we have
vocational training a vocational
training we do electrics we do woodwork
we do plumbing we do tailoring the next
time you see me walking around in a nice
uniform that’s made at the prison what
we try to tailor the training and the
skills that prisoners get inside of the
establishment but with the employment
market that we have in the Virgin
Islands and that’s also proven
successful even though most prisoners
are offered jobs when they go back out
with their family and with their friends
and whatever else one of the issues that
we have is about how we break that cycle
of offending and one of the huge
differences that I see is how the
tightness of those communities makes it
very difficult to some of the prisoners
to break away from the peer groups that
have encouraged them in the past with
the criminal activities in the UK again
it’s really simple it’s really simple
you draw a line around an area so you
can’t go in there so a sex offender take
a sex offender as it as it as an example
you can say legitimately you’re not
going near a school because you’ve
offended against children so you can’t
go with 150 metres of a school I don’t
know what that is in defeats I’m sorry
if they need to go back to prison
that’s it done and dusted well you can’t
drive from one of the Tortola to the
other without going back to school so we
can’t do those kind of things so we have
to find a solution to try and break some
of those cycles I’m not solution ease
education and that solution is not
education in the prison that solution is
education with children that are coming
into conflict with the law at the
earliest opportunity and again this
community provides a huge amount
at different agencies and people who are
interested we’ve got them the youth
empowerment project we’ve got Operation
Lionheart
we’ve got follow the movement we’ve got
the church church is fantastic
talking about employability and skills
we we needed a restroom in the school
but the prison we needed a restroom
because the juveniles who have a
mandatory education when we have to
youth announcer because they’re very
clever they’d already worked it out that
they had to go all the way back to their
cell to go to the toilet and it was a
great distance it’s from one side of the
prison to the other almost and through
three gates so the protests have gone to
the toilet takes an hour he got him out
of class for an hour there’s a few
teachers out there you know how big an
opportunity that is and by the time he
got back another one will be going so it
was taking them out of class far too
much so we said we needed a bathroom
well the church gave me the money as
soon as we asked the church provided the
money and then a prisoner sat down he
did the drawings another prisoner sat
down he did the quantity surveying
another prisoner sat down I did this
another way and all of a sudden I had a
building with a restroom in it
and electrics and a roof and everything
it’s all a came through I didn’t do
anything I just said I’d like to do that
and boom those are the skills that we
have in the prison and those are the
skills that some of the prisoners have
picked up through some of these courses
and the financing that’s come out of the
community so what I would like to see
and what I hope to encourage us to do is
that we have a system where children who
come into conflict with the law are
referred into these agencies because
these agencies start to work together
and it’s not just the agencies who
volunteer but the police present service
the Probation Service Ministry of
Education Ministry of Health and Social
Development all of us and so these
children are referred in and we look at
the services that we have across the
island at the schools or the churches
everywhere and we put the best
intervention we can in place at the
earliest opportunity because at the
moment we’re all working in silos
and if we can do that then we can start
a wedgy Kate these children these boys
at the earliest age that it’s okay to
stand up on your own it’s okay to say to
your peer groups no I’m not gonna get
involved in that I don’t want to do it I
want to move and do something else it’s
alright for me to make this decision and
maybe just maybe but everything that
we’ve done here and everything that the
community has to offer we will have an
impact on recidivism on rates of
reoffending in the Virgin Islands this I
think that we’ve put in place at the
prison will will reap rewards a lot of
it is very new and it’s going to take
four or five years before the statistics
bear out any difference between four
years ago when I started and the
minister and I looked at the
rehabilitation programs but but I am
confident that we have made a difference
and I am confident that we will reduce
rates of reoffending across the Virgin
Islands
you
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