By Jack Assa
Most
recently, the social media sites have been flooded with comments from Papua New
Guineans living within and abroad, criticizing the comments made by the Hon.
Minister for Religion, Youth and Community Development and Member for Lae, Ms
Loyjaya Toni, who is the only female Minister in the current O’Neil-Dion cabinet. While condemning the recent incidence of rape
and violence in PNG targeting local and foreign women, she said that no women
or girl should be subjected to rape but there was a link between prisoners on
the run and PNG’s high sex offence rate as reported in the Post Courier. She was quoted
saying “…some prisoners
should be released on bail to have sex with their wives to reduce sex crimes. She thinks that when men escape after being locked up and deprived of sex they will
"find a female … to vent their sexual aggression". Her solution to
the problem was to release low and medium-security prisoners on weekend
conjugal visits in order to "prevent rising levels of sexual
frustration".
Even though, Ms Toni was trying to bring a solution to the
current escalating problem in the country, it has been panned in the social media
sites by more than 1000 people. Some argued that it was not a proper way, while
others believed that conjugal bail is not appropriate for inmates. From a
global perspective, the initiative by Ms Toni is not a bad solution; hence, it
needs more research and consultation, if it was to be implemented in PNG. Today,
this article discusses conjugal visits as a Prison Rehabilitation Program (PRP)
and provides a bigger picture of how government can go about dealing with
prisoners to ease the sex and crime rate in the PNG.
What is a Conjugal Visit? A conjugal visit is a scheduled
extended visit during which an inmate of a prison is permitted to spend several
hours or days in private, usually with a legal spouse. While the parties may
engage in sexual intercourse, the generally recognized basis for permitting
such a visit in modern times is to preserve family bonds and increase the
chances of success for a prisoner’s eventual return to life outside prison.
Is Conjugal Visit run in other Countries? Conjugal visits are
offered as a PRP in many prisons around the world. Some of the countries that
run conjugal visits include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Germany,
Ireland, Israel Mexico and Russia to name a few. In the United States, inmates
must meet certain requirements to qualify for this privilege, for example, no
violation of the rules in the last six months, history of good behavior, and so
on. Those imprisoned in medium or maximum security facilities and inmates on
death row are not permitted conjugal visits. In the United States, New York,
California, Mississippi, Washington, Connecticut, and New Mexico are the only
six states that currently allow conjugal visits. There are strict rules and
requirements, from behavior to sexual orientation and disease status. France
and Canada allow prisoners who have earned the right to a conjugal visit to
stay in decorated home-like apartments during extended visits. In Brazil, male
prisoners are eligible to be granted conjugal visits for both heterosexual and
homosexual relationships, while women’s conjugal visits are tightly regulated,
if granted at all.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of Conjugal Visits?
The advantage is that conjugal visits will help preserve family bonds, and increase the chances of success
for a prisoner's eventual return to life outside prison. Additionally, they
serve as an incentive to motivate inmates to comply with the various day-to-day
rules and regulations of the prison, to avoid any infringement which might
disqualify them from having a conjugal visit. The biggest disadvantage for conjugal visit is that there are
high chances of drugs and arm smuggling into the prison. It compromises the
security of the prison. Running the program means having more officers on
guard, facilities, manning security in and around the prison. . Generally, it
will come at a high price.
What are the challenges, if the program was to be implemented
in PNG? It will definitely come at a high expense. This will mean each prison
within the country will need extra facilities to accommodate such program. The
challenges include research and wider consultation; Funding issue; most couple
do not have mirage certificate; Papua New Guineans do not have national identity
card like Indonesians and other countries; Polygamy fueled problems likely to
erupt; do not have the facility to cater conjugal visits; Will require extra
employees/ CIS officers; Funds to build facilities around the country for
Prisoners for conjugal visits; Determining the marriage status of a prisoner
(some prisoners can lie just for other illegal activities); Security of the
prison at stake and many other issues needs to be analyzed and projected.
Is it possible to grant Conjugal Bail now in PNG? No, it is
not possible in PNG now. However, the CIS can implement other PRPs discussed in
this paper. In addition, given the continuous prison breaks experienced in the
last few months, which includes Bomana (Port Moresby) Beon (Madang) Barawagi
(Simbu), Baisu (Western Highlands). Many of the escapees are still on the run
and yet to be apprehended by the Police. If prisoners are granted conjugal
bail, there is possibility that many of the prisoners will not return to serve
their full term. Papuan New Guineans do not have national identity cards nor a
mirage certificates to confirm that they are legally married. Therefore, it is quite
complicated determine the mirage status of a prisoner and identity of the
wife/wives. There is possibility of trafficking drugs and illegal weapons in
and out of the prison, hence, compromising the security of the prison.
Can Conjugal Visits offered in Papua New Guinea? It can be
offered in PNG but subject to deep research and consultation for a long period
of time. To grant a conjugal bail means moving out from the regular prison
wards to the conjugal visit facilities for some hours or days but within the
actual prison camp. I will not agree with the Honorable Member for Lae, if she
wants the prisoners to visit his or her family and return to the prison after
some days, which is not done anywhere in the world. It seems common today that
every prison break out involves a woman. The two major break-out in the history
of PNG by serial rapist and bank robber William Kapris involved a “female
lawyer” and a “female nurse”. This already gives an impression of how it would
be like in the future if conjugal bail is implemented.
Are there any other
Prisoners Rehabilitation Programs available? Apart from the conjugal bail or
visit as claimed by Ms Toni, there are other PRPs that have been proven
effective in other parts of the world. PRP helps and prepares a prisoner to fit
in the society after serving her/her sentence terms. Some of these PRP includes but not limited
to:
1. Victim-offender Mediation (VOM): Victim-offender mediation, (also called
victim-offender dialogue, victim-offender conferencing, victim-offender
reconciliation, or restorative justice dialogue), is usually a face-to-face
meeting, in the presence of a trained mediator, between the victim of a crime
and the person who committed that crime.
2. Faith-based programs: Many countries have turned to religious
programs that seek to change inmates’ internal motivations as well as external
behaviors. The government needs to support programs, as a key focus of its
Faith-Based and Community Initiative, an effort to encourage religious
charities and other nonprofits to provide social services. Faith based institutions needs to operate
prison and provide religious programming aimed at rehabilitation.
3. Prison Education Program: Offer some basic education (i.e.
literacy and Vocational Training) to inmates in prison. Skeptics claim that, in
many cases, prison education produces nothing more than “better educated
criminals”. However, many studies have shown significant decreases in
recidivism. A study by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons found: “The more
educational programs successfully completed for each six months confined, the
lower the recidivism rate.”
5. Drug Treatment: Drug-dependant
individuals are responsible for a disproportionately large percentage of
violent crimes and property offenses. Because so many drug addicts become
involved with the criminal activities in PNG, which also takes up a significant
portion of PNG’s law-enforcement and corrections budget, prisoners must be
offered drug treatment programs.
6. The Honor Program: Based on the principle of incentivizing
positive behavior and holding individuals accountable for their actions, the
purpose of the Honor Program is to create an atmosphere of safety, respect, and
cooperation, so that prisoners can do their time in peace, while working on
specific self-improvement and rehabilitative goals and projects which benefit
the community. Prisoners wishing to apply for the program must commit to
abstinence from drugs, gangs, and violence, and must be willing to live and
work with fellow prisoners of any race. Such
programs can save PNG taxpayers hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Kina.
Ms Tony might make the comment thinking that rape and sex crime
is done by the former prisoners who are granted freedom after serving their
terms for various crimes they committed. How do we know that the sex crime is committed
by a former prisoner? Where is the data to show that only former prisoners
commit sex crime? Can the police and CIS confirm that most sex crimes committed
in the country are by ex-prisoners? To find out about this, the relevant bodies
including the PNG Police Constabulary, Ministry of Community development and
Correctional Institutional Services (CIS) needs to keep the record of each prisoner and
his/her crime. To conclude, subject to deep research and
wider consultations, an appropriate decisions needs to be made.
The department of CIS must set its goals and
priorities right. The government through
CIS needs to treat the prisoners not like criminals but the citizens of the
country so when they come out of the prison after serving their term, they will
act like citizens and not animals. A prison is not only where criminals locked up
for years for the crimes they committed but at the same time, helping them to
be a good citizen when they return to their community. The Department of
Corrective Services' biggest goal is to help offenders gain the skills they
need to live a law-abiding lifestyle once their sentence is complete. There is
a widely-held public opinion that the institution can 'cure' people of their
offending behavior, however the reality is much different. Instead, the
institution aims to help them get their lives back on track by better
understanding their offending behavior and learning new ways to avoid
reoffending.
The writer is undertaking
postgraduate studies and living in Indonesia. For comments and feedbacks, he
can be contacted on jackassa945@gmail.com (email) / +081273238217 (Mobile Phone).
Source: Sunday Chronicle. July 7, 2013 (p.13)
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