CURB member agency, Vision On Mission held a spectacular Appreciation Awards ceremony at Queen’s Hall on Monday 31st January 2011 at which it honoured the contributions of past and present prisons officers, business persons and other citizens to the success of its programmes.
Vision On Mission also paid tribute to ex-offenders who had completed its programmes and had not re-offended. Several ex-prisoners were presented with special awards to recognise their achievements and transformation into productive members of the society.
The event also served as a ceremony for the installation of the new Board of Directors for the organisation.
Feature speaker was the Honourable Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Mrs. Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who caused a stir when she revealed some of the mechanisms being implemented by her administration to assist ex-prisoners and thereby reduce the rate of re-offending.
Among those plans are the issue of a grant of up to $5,000.00 to assist ex-prisoners in the process of reintegration, hiring a quota of ex-prisoners on government development projects and allowing a 200 percent tax incentive to private businesses which hire ex-prisoners.
The Prime Minister also indicated that the law is to be amended to allow prisoners to sell products they manufacture in prison and for the proceeds of sale to be distributed to their victims, their’ families and a portion to be retained as savings for their date of release.
CURB appreciates that several of these initiatives formed part of the recommendations of the Penal Reform Task Force Report as well as the Ex-prisoners Committee Report from 2003 and 2006 respectively.
We are pleased to hear that some of these measures which were recommended after much discussion and ground-breaking research are finally being implemented.
