Auditor General (AG) WANTS PRISONS ACT REVISED

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THE Auditor General (AG) has called for the Prisons Act to be revised to conform to international standards.
In the latest audit report of July 2014, the office of the Auditor General also called for a comprehensive national policy on internal security to address the rehabilitation and reintegration needs of prisoners.

The prisons Act should develop a strategic plan incorporating strategies on rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners.
The AG further called for increased efforts to facilitate the achievement of parole objectives under the rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners in Zambia.

The report established that the parole objectives were not being followed.
Some prisoners were not granted parole as they had not taken full advantage of the rehabilitation programmes, while others had lost their eligibility due to expiry of their sentences.
Parole hearings were not being conducted on time by the National Parole Board (NPD) due to apathy resulting from non-payment of allowances to the board members and lack of suitable transport to carry out parole hearings in prisons outside Lusaka, as the NPB was based in Lusaka.
He said the failure to grant parole had resulted in the board not meeting its intended objective of decongesting the prisons by releasing deserving prisoners before the expiry of their sentences and denying deserving prisoners the opportunity to take advantage of the benefits of early re-integration into society.

There was also need for qualified staff to generate data and perform social welfare assessments on each individual parolee because a parolee who was not adequately assessed for suitability, was a risk to public safety.
The report further called for coordination between the Zambia Prisons Service and the community to avoid stigma on ex-convicts and promote positive impact on prisoner re-entry into society.
The Zambia prisons service should also provide re-integration programmes for the prisoners to avoid re-offending from the ex-convicts.

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