Our re­sponse to crime is a moral test for our na­tion. Our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem needs to be re­formed. When a crime is com­mit­ted, we should seek to re­dress the dis­or­der caused by the of­fence, sup­port vic­tims/their fam­i­lies, and pro­mote right or­der/right re­la­tion­ships in so­ci­ety. We are fail­ing in our ef­forts to do so be­cause our ap­proach is wrong.

For many years, in my ad­vo­ca­cy work in the UK and in T&T, I have been high­light­ing fail­ures of the pe­nal sys­tem. Pris­ons are in­creas­ing­ly crit­i­cised as, ef­fec­tive­ly, hu­man ware­hous­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly for the im­pov­er­ished, men­tal­ly ill, and ad­dict­ed, rather than cen­tres of re­form. Ware­hous­ing hu­man be­ings in pris­ons will not pre­vent/re­duce crime or pro­mote in­te­gral hu­man de­vel­op­ment. The UNDP Caribbean Hu­man De­vel­op­ment Re­port 2012 made it clear that the “iron fist” is not work­ing. We need a fun­da­men­tal shift to­ward re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, ed­u­ca­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty sup­port.

The US Bish­ops right­ly said in their 2000 Pas­toral Let­ter: Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, and Restora­tion: A Catholic Per­spec­tive on Crime and Crim­i­nal Jus­tice: “Our so­ci­eties seem to pre­fer pun­ish­ment to re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and ret­ri­bu­tion to restora­tion, there­by in­di­cat­ing a fail­ure to rec­og­nize pris­on­ers as hu­man be­ings. Pun­ish­ment must have a con­struc­tive and re­demp­tive pur­pose – it must be cou­pled with treat­ment.” They rec­om­mend an ap­proach that en­cour­ages mod­els of restora­tive jus­tice that seek to ad­dress crime in terms of the harm done to vic­tims and com­mu­ni­ties, not sim­ply as a vi­o­la­tion of law.

Years ago (2004-2007) I was ap­point­ed by the then Sen­a­tor The Ho­n­ourable Mar­tin Joseph, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, now de­ceased, as a mem­ber of a Cab­i­net ap­point­ed Pa­role In­tro­duc­tion Com­mit­tee. Mr Nor­ton Jack was the Chair of the Com­mit­tee. He was lat­er ap­point­ed as a High Court Judge of T&T’s Supreme Court of Ju­di­ca­ture. He re­tired in March 2026. Al­so on the Com­mit­tee was the then Min­is­ter, Hon. Fitzger­ald Hinds, Min­is­ter of State in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, as well as Claire Blandin, Chief Pro­ba­tion Of­fi­cer, and oth­er em­i­nent T&T cit­i­zens.

In­ter alia, our role was to de­ter­mine the kind of in­fra­struc­ture that will be re­quired if T&T is to in­tro­duce pa­role. We pro­duced, what I con­sid­er to be a use­ful re­port, hav­ing ex­am­ined pa­role sys­tems in a num­ber of oth­er coun­tries. I am par­tic­u­lar­ly pleased to note that pre­vi­ous re­ports, in­clud­ing ours, and crim­i­no­log­i­cal stud­ies were con­sid­ered when draft­ing T&T’s Pa­role Bill, 2026 to tack­le is­sues like re­cidi­vism and prison over­crowd­ing.

It is more than time that T&T ex­plores spe­cif­ic re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes, pa­role sys­tems, and restora­tive jus­tice ef­forts, in or­der to re­duce re­of­fend­ing num­bers. At a re­cent event that I at­tend­ed, Hon Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj, Min­is­ter of Jus­tice and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, high­light­ed the fact that re­cent par­lia­men­tary da­ta re­veals that the over­all re­cidi­vism rate in T&T is about 58 per cent. Many in­di­vid­u­als and or­gan­i­sa­tions have at­trib­uted the high over­all re-en­try num­bers to a lack of ded­i­cat­ed state fund­ing for for­mal prison re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes, which large­ly re­ly on NGOs and re­li­gious groups.

T&T has now es­tab­lished a for­mal pa­role sys­tem with the pas­sage of the Pa­role Bill, 2026 in Par­lia­ment, spear­head­ed by the Ho­n­ourable De­vesh Ma­haraj. The Act was of­fi­cial­ly as­sent­ed to by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo ORTT on May 27, and pub­lished as Act No. 12 of 2026. The leg­is­la­tion es­tab­lish­es a com­pre­hen­sive, struc­tured two-tiered frame­work of par­tial and full pa­role un­der the strict over­sight of a new­ly struc­tured, nine-mem­ber Pa­role Board, led by a full-time Chair. The Act will fa­cil­i­tate ear­ly su­per­vised con­di­tion­al re­lease for el­i­gi­ble in­mates, be­fore serv­ing their full sen­tence - based on be­hav­iour and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion as­sess­ments. Like many com­plex pieces of leg­is­la­tion, the Act will come in­to op­er­a­tion on a date to be fixed by the Pres­i­dent by Procla­ma­tion.

The Pa­role Board–shield­ed from ex­ter­nal in­flu­ence–will over­see, re­view, and iden­ti­fy el­i­gi­ble of­fend­ers, set­ting pa­role con­di­tions, and mak­ing re­lease or re­vo­ca­tion rec­om­men­da­tions to the Court. The Act does not guar­an­tee au­to­mat­ic re­lease. Pa­role of­fi­cers will be re­quired to con­duct a “re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive needs as­sess­ment” to struc­ture in­di­vid­u­alised sup­port and en­sure the pris­on­er’s safe re­turn to so­ci­ety.

Note that the 2026 leg­is­la­tion was brought for­ward as part of a wider pack­age of crim­i­nal jus­tice re­forms, de­signed to bal­ance pun­ish­ment with of­fend­er re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion. See the Pro­ba­tion of Of­fend­ers (Amend­ment) Bill, the Crim­i­nal Records (Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of Of­fend­ers) Bill, and an up­com­ing Vic­tims’ Rights Bill.

I urge com­mu­ni­ties to play their part in elim­i­nat­ing post-re­lease stig­ma and help parolees/for­mer in­mates to rein­te­grate in so­ci­ety suc­cess­ful­ly.