The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe said while officials want to introduce halfway houses for inmates on parole, the plan requires buy-in from residents who have to accept such homes in their neighbourhood.

“When you deal with parole, a big part of parole will involve housing after you leave the correctional facility,” Mr Munroe said yesterday. “That is something that Commissioner Cleare and his team is looking at.

“Of course, as I say, it requires society buy-in because everyone is going to say they don’t want it in their neighbourhood, and you can’t have that if you expect to house people.”

Halfway houses are temporary facilities for people leaving jail or satisfying a condition of their probation or parole.

Mr Munroe said a parole bill would be released for public consultation soon.

“For everything other than firearms offences, for every 12 months you are sentenced to, you get four months off automatically when you reach the prison,” he said. “If when you come out of prison, you commit an offence the very next day, or the same day, you never serve those four months that they took off your sentence. We intend to reverse that.

“We intend to make you accountable or to propose that you’ll be accountable for every day that you’re sentenced to, that you serve this time, some of it in the correctional facility and some of it in the community.”