By LETRE SWEETING

Tribune Staff Reporter

lsweeting@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe said he met a bill of $40,000 for bread for prisoners’ meals when he took office, the kind of expense he hopes is reduced when a parole system is introduced.

During a community meeting on Wednesday evening, Mr Munroe addressed concerns about the proposed parole system.

“It is more expensive to have someone incarcerated than to deal with them in the community,” he said. “You are housing them. You are feeding them three meals a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. When I came into office, I met a bill from Purity Bakery for I think it was $40,000 for bread.

Munr“You have to cook three meals a day for 1400, 1500 people, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. When you are on parole, you feed yourself. When you are on parole, you pay your own electricity bill. When you are on parole, you pay for your own housing.”

“There is value in assisting inmates with getting out of the prison.”

Mr Munroe said authorities must ensure officers are sent to Family Islands to monitor parolees stationed there.

“The only thing that is required is for you to have a corrections officer,” he said. “So in the same way that you could have an immigration officer on the island, a customs officer on the island, if you want to be on parole and you’re not living with your parole officer, the parole officer just has a duty to make sure and check that you are living up to the conditions of your parole.

“So if you’re supposed to do something, you will have an officer in Exuma, in every inhabited island. You will have a lot of officers in New Providence because that’s where a lot of people live who will be on parole; fewer people live in Acklins who will be on parole so you won’t require the same volume of officers.

“Corrections will have to organise itself when you have to supervise persons in every island. The deputy commissioner of corrections will be responsible for this area to make sure that his manpower is deployed in that fashion. They will be able to call whoever they want to be able to do that.

“If, for instance, they have one person on Ragged Island on parole and they determine that they don’t want to deploy a correctional officer to monitor them, they may defer –– because HMBS Gunpoint is on that island –– to defence force personnel, who will be cross-trained and act as the parole officer on that island.”

Mr Munroe also announced that the Italian government has offered to partner with The Bahamas to train some corrections officers in Italy as the BDOCS pursues accreditation.