Prisoners on road to rehabilitation with the NRA
HMP Northward inmates participating in roadside clean-up
(CNS): HMP Northward and the National Roads Authority have entered into a partnership to help clean up Grand Cayman using prisoners to clear litter along the roadside to make the authority’s work cutting back trees and overgrowth more efficient. The prison work crews have all volunteered for the hard and hot but necessary work helping the NRA because the authority does not have staff in their team allocated to clear trash ahead of the heavy equipment. The project is also being touted by the authorities as putting inmates on the road to rehabilitation.
Speaking to the press Thursday in Bodden Town, close to where the prison crew was working, Steve Barrett, the interim prison director, said the project would contribute towards that rehabilitation and the goal to cut recidivism, but it was also a collaborative project to clean up the important and precious local environment.
Home Affairs Minister Tara Rivers said the new partnership was a key initiative in providing prisoners with the opportunity to do things like this to help them in their reintegration into the community. The minister said it was part of the ongoing prison community work party project, where risk assessed prisoners are able to help with important clean-up activities around the island, such as clearing seaweed from the beaches and removing graffiti.
Rivers said this was the first formal agreement between government agencies and she encouraged other departments to do the same. She said this type of project gave prisoners a chance to demonstrate their commitment to work and that they can be productive members of the community, in preparation for their release from prison.
Commerce Minister Joseph Hew said that this programme was separate and apart from the government’s NiCE project, which offers short but more extensive clean ups. He said the prisoners would be doing the specific job of clearing trash from the roadsides but it may be expanded to a more permanent trash clean-up in partnership with the Department of Environmental Health.
“It’s a win-win,” Hew said, explaining that it was not taking away anyone’s job and was not adding to the NRA’s budget, but it would make the roadside pruning more efficient and ensure that the trash would be cleared and not spread across the area after the trimming.
Category: Local News
Joe Hew you are an XXXXXX.
The only jobs you afraid of taking away is the foreigners.
Government should hire these guys for your million dollar projects instead of giving the contract to foreign companys to hire foreign labour. Prisioners have children too they need to go to school and be maintain.
Minor offenders have a job while doing time that should be part of our sentence and rehabilitation when I get i already have a job. To maintain myself or familly .
Great idea and effort to help the prisonners. However providing them with necessary job training and skills will be a better option towards long-term rehabilitation. Also have them create bike and walk paths, green areas and clean the yards of the elderly or disable.
The problem with the roadside garbage is all of the wutless (worthless) people that dump their garbage outside car windows.
Such a simple concept.
Without these idiots we would have minimal roadside garbage.
Perhaps some of these numbskulls should be in Northward and their sentence would be to clean the roads everyday for 1 year!
Pure wutlessness!
How about clearing all the blocked beach access points, rip out the fences and chop the bushes
4:07pm: now there is an novel idea!
This was going on in the nineties, why did this practice disappear? Make these criminals appreciate a hard days work to earn their supper just like in the real world. Without this community payback the facility in Northward is just a hotel for bad men.
We’ve only been suggesting this for years on this comment board! Finally someone noticed. Stop acting like they’re doing us a favor though, because they’re criminals and they need to earn back their place in society.
*Paint and pressure wash parks/beach cabanas monthly
*Roadside garbage cleanup
*Beach garbage and seaweed clean up
Other places prisoners make license plates, obviously not happening here but they can do other crafts! Giving these guys an outlet could help them to integrate back into society easier. Ask the bars to save some glass bottles (wine and beer) and you can have them cut them into cups then let them paint some of them with Cayman things to sell to tourists and locals!
Thank you NRA.
More govt. and private organizations should be doing this to assist in the reintegration of offenders.
This is really strange that after all these years , that no one could see that this could be something that certain prisoners could be doing , but all of sudden from Minister to the NRA can see it now . I wonder what is the prisoners pay for street cleaning ? Can Ms. Rivers or the NRA give us an honest answer ?
Looks like the prisoners volunteered for the work:
“The prison work crews have all volunteered for the hard and hot but necessary work helping the NRA because the authority does not have staff in their team allocated to clear trash ahead of the heavy equipment.”
“It’s a win-win,” Hew said, explaining that it was not taking away anyone’s job and was not adding to the NRA’s budget”
Great to see the initiative being taken.
Good article, I’ve been saying this for years. There are many places that need a coat of paint or a regular clean up. This type of thing should be mandatory, they should be earning their 3 meals and place to sleep that we all pay so dearly for and get nothing back from.
Please have the prisoners clean the untouched beaches all around the island rather than the usual ones. Seaweed and debris washed up all along the beaches in NS, BT and EE, not just the public ones. It’s been there for years.
Free Steve!
Who in the world is Steve?
We have been suggesting this for years. Well done Prison Service.
Alright! Chain gang makes me feel like home in Mississippi.
Seems to be a good partnership to keep our roads clean knowing all of the trouble the DEH has been having. Good Job.
Alamama,Tennessee, Georgia clean highway. Thanks to hard working criminals