LettersSeptember 18 2026
Rehabilitation must drive prison planning
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THE EDITOR, Madam:
The word ‘security’ with reference to prisons refers, for most people, to the physical confinement of their inmates. It means that the confinement must be stringent, tight, especially when the talk is of ‘high’ security. Put another way, though, it refers to the small amount of freedom allowed.
This is of considerable importance when, as Minister Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn notes, cost has to be given primary attention in contemplating a new facility. Cost is determined by the amount of space allocated to each inmate, and space is determined by both inmate rehabilitation needs and societal control needs.
When the two needs are combined, it is a large institution that has to be planned for, because at the forefront of the minds of governmental planners is societal control. But societal control requires that inmates have limited space and restricted freedom. Only thus is control exercised.
The problem is that the limited space imposed on all inmates usually does not meet the need for rehabilitation, the goal to which planners are also committed. This requires larger space than the propo...