Communities must embrace correctional centres

THE Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service (ZPCS), are working on establishing community correctional centres to facilitate the effective implementation of the parole system.

Zimbabwe has over the years spent resources on rehabilitation of prison inmates to prepare them for reintegration into society as opposed to punishing them.

Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said last week that his ministry in liaison with ZPCS was working on establishing community correction centres to enable ZPCS to effectively implement the parole system.

The Prisons and Correctional Service Act provides for the establishment of the State Parole Board and sets conditions for the releases of inmates from prison.

An inmate can be released through a decision by the President, the State Parole Board and the Commissioner-General of Prisons or Justice Minister.

Minister Ziyambi said effective implementation of the parole system will go a long way in decongesting Zimbabwe’s prisons.

The prisons have over the years been running programmes to equip inmates with different skills such as carpentry, welding, sewing, market gardening, livestock farming, building, spray painting and many other such skills to prepare the inmates for life after prison. This has drastically reduced cases of recidivism.

The establishment of community correctional centres will therefore speed up the inmates’ reintegration into society while at the same time reducing overcrowding in prisons.

We want to commend the Justice Ministry and ZPCS for their commitment to transform our prisons into rehabilitation centres for inmates as opposed to places to punish prisoners as was the case before independence.

Prisoners under the present system are given another chance to contribute to the development of their communities using skills gained while in prison.

Prisons across the country are running thriving farming projects and as such many of them are producing food not just for their own consumption but surplus, for sale.

The ZPCS is therefore saving Government a lot of money by producing food and other provisions for inmates such as uniforms.

We want at this juncture to implore communities to embrace the establishment of correctional centres in their areas to facilitate inmates’ quick reintegration into society.