Parliament to consider parole legislation, says minister

Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­[email protected]

Min­is­ter of Jus­tice De­vesh Ma­haraj says leg­is­la­tion to in­tro­duce a pa­role sys­tem in Trinidad and To­ba­go will soon be laid in Par­lia­ment as part of a broad­er ef­fort to re­form the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and re­duce de­lays.

Ma­haraj said a Pa­role Bill is among a suite of mea­sures be­ing pre­pared to im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy and ac­cess to jus­tice.

“There’s a Pa­role Act...which we bring in­to Par­lia­ment short­ly to in­tro­duce pa­role to the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem,” he said.

He added that the leg­is­la­tion will come along­side amend­ments to the Pro­ba­tion Act, the in­tro­duc­tion of a Vic­tims’ Rights Bill, and pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion­al changes to strength­en the right to a tri­al with­in a rea­son­able time.

“We are bring­ing cer­tain amend­ments to the Con­sti­tu­tion for the right of rea­son­able tri­al, a quick tri­al, the right of the ac­cused to a tri­al with­in a rea­son­able time,” Ma­haraj said.

The min­is­ter said the leg­isla­tive push is be­ing sup­port­ed by op­er­a­tional changes aimed at re­duc­ing long-stand­ing back­logs in the sys­tem.

“We are work­ing very close­ly with the ju­di­cia­ry it­self to en­sure that we have func­tion­al court­rooms. We are work­ing with the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre to clear back­logs to en­sure that crim­i­nal tri­als pro­ceed quick­ly,” he said.

Ma­haraj said ad­di­tion­al re­sources have al­ready been de­ployed to ad­dress de­lays in foren­sic test­ing.

“We have had a huge back­log in our au­top­sy re­ports. We have added six per­sons to the DNA lab to clear that back­log as well,” he said.

He said the over­all goal is to make jus­tice more ef­fi­cient and ac­ces­si­ble.

The move fol­lows ear­li­er ef­forts to in­tro­duce pa­role-type mech­a­nisms.

In 2012, then Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney called for a pa­role sys­tem man­aged by a Pa­role Board and an ear­ly re­lease pro­gramme for cer­tain cat­e­gories of of­fend­ers.

Dur­ing a 2011 par­lia­men­tary de­bate on elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing, Vol­ney ar­gued that the ex­ist­ing par­don sys­tem was too rigid, forc­ing a choice be­tween full in­car­cer­a­tion and ab­solute free­dom. He pro­posed a con­di­tion­al frame­work that would al­low su­per­vised re­lease while main­tain­ing over­sight.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said a prop­er­ly struc­tured pa­role sys­tem could sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce the fi­nan­cial bur­den on the prison sys­tem.

Dr Seep­er­sad ex­plained that pa­role al­lows pris­on­ers to be­come el­i­gi­ble for ear­ly re­lease af­ter serv­ing a manda­to­ry por­tion of their sen­tence, de­pend­ing on rec­om­men­da­tions from the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons and eval­u­a­tions by a pa­role board.

The board as­sess­es fac­tors such as par­tic­i­pa­tion in re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes, risk of re-of­fend­ing and the pris­on­er’s po­ten­tial for rein­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety, in­clud­ing fam­i­ly and em­ploy­ment sup­port.

“Pa­role is not au­to­mat­ic, even if some­one be­comes el­i­gi­ble,” Dr Seep­er­sad said. “The sys­tem is se­lec­tive. Se­ri­ous of­fend­ers re­main in­car­cer­at­ed, while low-risk in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing el­der­ly pris­on­ers, may be con­sid­ered for re­lease.”

He added that the ap­proach eas­es costs as­so­ci­at­ed with in­car­cer­a­tion while fo­cus­ing re­sources on pris­on­ers who pose the great­est risk to pub­lic safe­ty.

How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that past prac­tices in Trinidad and To­ba­go have seen pris­on­ers re­leased with­out struc­tured sup­port.

“A prop­er pa­role sys­tem must go be­yond pe­ri­od­ic po­lice re­port­ing,” Dr Seep­er­sad said. “It re­quires link­ing re­turn­ing pris­on­ers to train­ing, ac­com­mo­da­tion, health­care and em­ploy­ment. This sup­port not on­ly pro­tects the pub­lic but al­so re­duces the like­li­hood of re­cidi­vism.”

Dr Seep­er­sad said that when im­ple­ment­ed cor­rect­ly, pa­role could de­liv­er both eco­nom­ic and so­cial ben­e­fits, but warned that im­prop­er ap­pli­ca­tion could cre­ate chal­lenges for the jus­tice sys­tem.