Pacific Prisons Conference Underway In Honiara

Pacific Prisons Conference Underway In Honiara

Solomon Islands is hosting the first four-day Pacific Corrections Conference beginning yesterday that brings 13 Pacific Islands nations together to deliberate on keys issues in providing a safe a secure environment for prisoners.

The Minister for Police and National Security and Justice and Legal Affairs Hon Isaac Inoke told participants while opening the conference yesterday, that the conference was an important opportunity for smaller Pacific Island nations to come together and share experiences because they often work in similar situations.

"Sharing lessons learnt and best practice approaches in correctional administration will benefit both the Solomon Islands and our neighbours. The conference will strengthen regional partnership and information sharing. We also want to use the conference to prepare for the larger Asia Pacific Conference this year where we can present common issues in correctional management in the Pacific, he said.

The Pacific Corrections Conference in covering a wide range of topics, including prisoner management, rehabilitation and preparing for return to the community, law reform, infrastructure and approaches to youth, gender and health issues like HIV/AIDS.

Commissioner of Solomon Islands Prison Service, Barry Apsey said Solomon Islands is in an excellent position to present its achievements and lessons learnt to assist other nations develop secure and fair correctional facilities.

"Solomon Islands has been working in close partnership with the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands to improve our correctional facilities."

"This partnership has given us a lot of experience in improving security and moving the focus of correctional facilities to rehabilitation of the prisoner. We are looking forward to sharing this with our Pacific neighbours at the conference", Mr Apsey said.

In four years the Solomon Islands has developed new prisons legislation call the Correctional Facilities Bill. Introduced new programs, trained staff and begun work on rebuilding outdated provincial prisons.

Mr Apsey said Solomon Islands now has a correctional system that is up to date with international standards of security and fairness.

"It has also ensured that we can meet the equally important objective of community safety", Mr Apsey said.

ENDS

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