THE figures suggest that judges are handing down more non-custodial sentences than before, but Major Richard Reese is batting for a sentencing policy that’s even more liberal in the face of mounting costs to man the prisons.

Reese, Commissioner of Corrections, is batting for more non-custodial sentences for non-violent crimes.

At $500,000 per inmate, it costs just under $2.5 billion to house and feed the 4,913 adult and juvenile prisoners now in the system, some of whom enter the correctional services as minor offenders and leave as hardened criminals.

The department’s operational budget this year is $2.33 billion, according to 2005/06 Estimates of Expenditure.

“We can’t tell the judges what to do, but we would like to see even more non-violent offenders being given community service orders,” said Reese.

“Think of the social disruption once the person goes to jail, the impact on the family, and so on. You have to look at it in a logical way,” he said.

Reese, who eventually came back to the money after arguing the social good, said his operational budget was also burdened by medical care for inmates.

“Look at the number of women and the amount of time they report sick. And even if they are not really sick they have to be examined,” he said.

Last year, one dentist alone saw 1,654 cases, said the prison boss, as example to demonstrate the level of services demanded by inmates.

Under the community service order initiative, convicted minor offenders are sentenced to a minimum of 40 hours and a maximum of 360 hours for first time offences, and up to 480 for repeat offences, doing manual labour at a court-assigned government institution, often a hospital or school.

Last year, 2,401 offenders were given non-custodial sentences, reflecting an increase of 376 over the previous year.

The recidivism numbers were unavailable for ‘orderees’ – as the court refers to them.

But Reese said a majority of the 911 persons who did community service last year, have stayed out of trouble with the law.

“All we can do is promote the programme and speak to the benefits, and then the judge ultimately takes into account the facts of the case, the level of crime in the community and whether they have confidence in the supervisory agency to properly report on the individual,” said the prison commissioner.

Oswald Burchenson, a senior judge in the lower courts, is in sync with Reese’s views, but he points out that what the prison boss is asking for is already happening.

Burchenson, who, as Senior Resident Magistrate for Manchester has administrative oversight of the parish courts, said that coming out of a partnership agreement between the governments of Jamaica and Britain, a number of parishes including Manchester, were being used as focal points to determine the success rate of the programme.

Based on this, he said, his colleagues have been issuing more community service sentences.

“I happen to know it is something that is advocated right through the judiciary,” Burchenson told the Sunday Observer.

His parish had the highest number of community service sentences in 2005 – 298, or 82 more than the year prior – according to the breakout of sentences by the courts islandwide, provided by the Department of Correctional Services.

The senior RM is on record as an advocate for non-custodial sentences, but was however quick to point out Friday that it should only be given to deserving cases.

According to 2005 statistics from the Correctional Services, cases under the Community Service Order Programme (CSOP) have a 79 per cent success rate, meaning orderees complete their sentences.

There are 1,444 approved placement agencies under CSOP, where some ex-orderees have managed to gain employment after time served.

But Burchenson, at a CSOP workshop in Mandeville, said he has found that orderees sentenced to work programmes outside his parish, often disappeared, adding that some offenders give the courts fake names and addresses, making them difficult to track.

But CSOP coordinator Donald Miller, though admitting there were instances where offenders were tardy in carrying out their assigned duties, said such cases were minimal and that for the most part the programme was effective.

“Sometimes we find that the people really enjoy giving of their time to the institution and the fact that it is free labour, the institution welcomes this opportunity,” he said.

“Between April of last year to May of this year, 10 persons received jobs as a result of them being placed on community service.”

Miller says judges, probation officers, and the police have given the programme the thumbs up.

Burchenson is one of those judges sold on the benefits.

“Speaking for Manchester, I have probation officers here who are really putting their all into it and we have orderees here who are really benefiting in more ways than one,” he said.

“They have learned the value of work and they have found out that they are the beneficiary of something that is valuable to them and all in all it is working beautifully in this parish.”

Reese said there were some minor challenges, linked to work programme coordination.

“A person may go to do a job at a school and there are no garden tools and we will have to go and get the garden tool for the work to be done; and so there has been some concerns about the coordination,” he said.

Nonetheless, the correctional services hopes to ramp up the numbers of orderees entering the system this year by lobbying the judiciary.

The prison boss said his department also offers a range of ‘community probation’ services.

Probation officers monitor child offenders who have been given non-custodial sentences by the court; or ‘walk-in customers’ may ask for assistance with a truant child or abusive spouse.

“We determine if we can deal with (the request), or whether it needs to be referred to another agency,” said Reese.

And, children with problems “can come to us on their own too, not just the parents,” he said.

A total of 6,193 persons sought the department’s assistance last year, for cases covering truancy, stealing, gambling, migration of parents, negligence, cruelty, and requests for legal document.

Overall, probation officers investigated 7,177 cases in 2005, a new ten-year record.

“It is a lot of services,” said Reese.

browni@jamaicaobserver.com