All the pardoned youth prisoners are to be released from jail by tomorrow and according to President David Granger they are going to be sent to a rehabilitation programme.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday shortly after the conclusion of the first sitting of the 11th Parliament, Granger said that it was following the appointment of Attorney General Basil Williams as the Minister of Legal Affairs that he signed the order to have the presidential pardons executed.
Granger during a special media interview on May 25 had said that sixty young prisoners who had been convicted for non-violent crimes would be pardoned beginning the following day. None of the prisoners who are between the ages of 15 and 25 years has yet been released.
Yesterday, Granger revealed that fewer persons than was previously indicated would be pardoned after their names were struck from the list when it was found that they were convicted of offences which could be deemed violent.
He could not give the exact figure but Attorney General Basil Williams subsequently said that the number for those pardoned stands at about 49.
According to Granger among those struck from the list are break and entry convicts. This offence is one which he, Granger would have classified as a serious crime. “The only ones who are left are non-violent”.
Asked for the reason/s behind the delay in releasing these persons, he said that the pardons were delayed because they had to be scrutinized by the prisons, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of the Presidency.
When asked for a response to concerns by observers that persons will now be more prone to committing these non-violent offences, the president responded “no no there is a follow up. There is a young prisoner rehabilitation scheme that they are going to be sent to”. He did not provide details on the programme but instead referred Stabroek News to Williams.
Williams had said in a previous interview that USAID had made a proposal to have those pardoned enrolled in its Skills and Knowledge for Youth Employment (SKYE) Project.
Williams when approached yesterday said that he had sent the order which was signed by the president to Prison Director Welton Trotz earlier in the day. He said that the government would not want the name of those persons pardoned, published for security reasons.
Friday deadline
Meanwhile Trotz told Stabroek News that the deadline for all the persons to be released was tomorrow.
Asked about the shortening of the list, he said “There were some persons, the offence they would have committed are serious offences and that was an oversight on our part. I can say one particular case is where we had (overlooked) a man who was charged with robbery but when they did the programme it was shown as possession. There is another one who also shows possession but he is committed for rape”.
Trotz revealed that there are two women in the number; one convicted for larceny and the other for possession.
Granger had initially said that his target were women prisoners but he found that there was “a very small number of women who had actually committed minor offences.”
According to Trotz some of the pardoned prisoners could be released today but the process must be completed by tomorrow.
Presidential pardons are to be an annual feature. Granger had told the media that “I believe that young people should be in school, not in jail and I have asked that emphasis be placed on young persons and for petty, non-violent offences and sentences of short duration”.
Granger, while the leader of the opposition had expressed concerns at the number of young people being sent to jail for minor offences such as a theft of a cellphone. He had said that there is a link between early imprisonment and hard core criminality.
He had posited that the large amount of money that is being spent to maintain each prisoner could be better spent on creating avenues, which would benefit young people and steer them away from a life of crime.