Families can be saved by conjugal visits

I will be grateful if you can clarify what really happened. As confirmed by the transcript from the conference, I did not really say that I was "wrong" about conjugal visits, etc. I did say however, that whenever the words "conjugal visits" are mentioned, a lot of people think of sex only but that there is more to it than that. I went on to say that such visits are designed to include family visits and related exchanges in such ways that the family — spouse and children especially — can still be kept together while the convicted is in prison.

After all, our research at the Centre for Criminology has found that while about 60 percent of the prisoners are recidivists, there is the further danger that about 8,000 spouses and children are left behind, many of them being left to "fend for themselves."

And in our view, such sudden destitution, secondary victimisation really, has serious criminogenic consequences which must be taken seriously now.

In fact, it was after Prisons’ Commissioner John Rougier spoke about some improvements in the prison service that I added my remarks to help broaden our understanding of victimisation and conjugal visits. Certainly, this is a very hot subject but the major focus at last Saturday’s (October 15) stakeholders conference on Victims’ Rights and Welfare was the establishment of a coordinated network of legal, social and psychological resources to assist victims of crime, discrimination and a manageable range of other injustices.

So while we hunt for the criminals we have to look after the victims too. These include legislation reviews, crime victim Clinics across the county, the formation of a 30-member national alliance on victims’ rights and welfare and a national conference staged by the Centre for Criminology on victims’ rights and welfare on November 12, 2005 at the UWI. And certainly, the issue of conjugal visits as a social mechanism for family stability will be examined more closely by our local and international experts on this occasion.

PROFESSOR RAMESH DEOSARAN

Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice

St Augustine