Professor Charles Nesson of the Harvard University in the United States, tries out one of the computers in the lab at the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, yesterday. The lab was opened yesterday. Sharing in the occasion are (from left) Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe; Gilbert Scott, the permanent in the Ministry of National Security; and Derrick Kellier, junior minister in the security ministry. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)

A Harvard University law professor yesterday told Jamaican prison inmates to tell their stories via the Internet, as one way of informing the world about the problems the island faced "from their own unique perspectives".

Professor Charles Nesson of the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School in Boston, Massachusetts, USA , told a function to open a computer lab and hand over nine computer workstations to the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, said inmates could express themselves through music, text and other means, and share their experiences with the world through an interactive website he had initiated, known as "Jamaica Voices".
The lab was equipped by the Berkman Centre.

"Through Jamaica Voices, we can light up a node in cyberspace and help Jamaica resolve its differences," said Nesson.

Noting that it was the "power of identity" that counted, moreso than the amount of money one amassed, Professor Nesson said that Jamaican society had been schooled through its history of subjugation under slavery and colonialism to be oppressive, including encouraging its people to turn against each other, beginning with the British encouraging Maroons to return escaped slaves.

He said the current crime problem which was fuelled by the "run of cocaine" was only the latest manifestation of this phenomenon.

The computer lab is the third such to be opened in a Jamaican correctional institution, following similar initiatives at the South Camp Correctional Facility and at the Fort Augusta women's institution, but is the first at a high-security facility.

State minister in the Ministry of National Security Derrick Kellier, who opened the lab, welcomed the initiative as one that would transfer skills that could enable inmates to be resocialised and reintegrated into society.

Meanwhile, initiator of the computer initiative in prisons, Kevin Wallen, told the Observer that the programme, which is driven largely by inmates teaching each other, aims at introducing basic computer skills from which some eventually move on to advanced programmes such as video editing and advanced graphics programmes.

About 70 inmates at the South Camp Rehabilitation Centre and 40 at Fort Augusta Women's Prison have been engaged in computer training, Wallen said.

He said attempts were also being made to develop accredited programmes through HEART/NTA in the correctional system.

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