PRISONERS TO GET CARROT AND STICK TREATMENT

New prisons boss Bryan Payling is to crack down on inmates who
refuse to take rehabilitation programmes by withholding privileges.

The 'get tough' programme will be phased in with visits and access
to cash and recreation likely to be restricted for prisoners who
refuse to toe the line.

The Acting Commissioner of Corrections, who took over at the
beginning of this month, said the majority of privileges are now
available to all prisoners from day one -- regardless of whether
they show willingness to reform.

They include gym and sports, time out of cells, payment of 50 cents
a day ($1 a day for those who work), receiving cash from the outside
to use in the canteen, and visiting rights. There is also the right
to buy a TV after two years.

Mr. Payling said: "We are looking to put together a package which
provides a minimum but humane level for prisoners who don't
participate in the regime at all -- who don't behave properly.

"There will be an intermediate level for the majority who behave
properly and an enhanced level for prisoners whose conduct and
effort to address their offending behaviour is of particularly merit."

Privileges should be earned rather than doled out automatically,
said Mr. Payling.

"We are close to a final draft which will be put forward for
ministerial approval."

He said six managers and two members of the Prison Officers
Association had visited England where the carrot and stick approach
was successfully being used.

"My experience of prisons which operate this way is you create an
environment in which there's positive encouragement to address
offending behaviour and work and it strengthens the positive
relationships between prison officers and inmates.

"It's not about making prisoners' lives easy.

"It's about where they do make the effort they can see, just like
the rest of us, there's some recognition -- and they don't see
people getting something for nothing."

However he rejected the perception that Westgate was a holiday camp.

"I don't consider Westgate soft -- it certainly is not soft by UK standards."

Mr. Payling hopes to expand the prisons drug testing policy although
he said fears that Westgate was chock full of addicted prisoners
were vastly over-stated.

He said random mandatory drug testing, which has been running for
seven months, showed about ten percent were positive at Westgate
while at the Prison Farm and Co-ed Facility tests often found none
of those tested were on drugs.

The figure is a far cry from the entry levels showing more than
three quarters of convicts were on drugs when they first arrive in prison.

Mr. Payling now wants regular testing of hard-core users as well as
random testing. "It might be every week and every month."

And he wants to expand privileges for inmates who undergo voluntary
testing to demonstrate they are drug-free.

Those who slip up under voluntary testing would be given further help.

"The prisoner is saying I am trying to give up drugs and I need
assistance. Sometimes the prisoner needs assistance to tell other
people they are giving up drugs."

He said the approach had worked in the UK where prisoners weaning
themselves off narcotics were sometimes held in separate units.

"In one of my prisons we set aside a unit which held 120 prisoners.
We very quickly filled that up with prisoners who were subscribing
to voluntary testing.

"By the time I left England we were having to look at opening up
another unit for prisoners who didn't want to be involved in the
drugs culture. Having a separate unit gets them out of that temptation."

He plans to look into having a separate drug-free unit within
Bermuda's prison system.

The Corrections Department is now in dialogue with Court Services
about getting trainers from the UK to instruct staff to deliver drug
programmes for short-term inmates who weren't getting the treatment
they needed.

The prison has just one psychologist but is now trying to recruit
two more -- a process re-started after two potential hires backed
out at the last minute.

A new approach will be taken with drug-sniffer dogs with some
deployed to alert officers if drugs are on a person and others to
help root out drugs hidden in cells. He said having dogs do both
'passive' and 'active' functions was less efficient than having
specialist dogs.

The service has just acquired another 'passive' dog, making up a
team of three.

Asked about allegations made by former Corrections Commissioner
Hubert Dean that around a dozen officers were bringing in drugs Mr.
Payling said it was inappropriate to malign officers, most of whom
were doing a good job under difficult circumstances.