Efforts intensified on inmate rehabilitation, reimplementing parole programme

The Home Affairs Ministry is currently designing a programme aimed at bolstering the efforts undertaken to rehabilitate inmates and to provide them with the requisite skills for their reintegration into society.

This was according to the Subject Minister, Oneidge Walrond, during the Starting Point podcast aired last Sunday, during which she added that the parole programme is also being reimplemented after some four years.

“We started to reimplement the parole programme, which is for persons who have served an extended length of time. They go off on parole, supervised, and this is all part of making sure that young people are still in their productive ages and not languishing in prison,” the Minister added.

She further stated that a lot of attention is being paid to rehabilitation with respect to education. “I pay specific attention to young people, late teens and early twenties, who are coming into the prison system. What can we do to rehabilitate this person while he or she is in the prison service? What particular skill can we continue to hone in on?”

The Prison Act, she added, gives us more legal bandwidth to do more in terms of integration, noting that “while we are making progress and doing more in terms of skill building and counselling, we are also bringing in more sports programmes. They have started back doing boxing… So those are all initiatives to get our young people back interested in sports and the discipline that comes with participating in sports. But we also need a more structured reintegration. We have to make sure that they can be properly supervised,” Minister Walrond explained.

She further stated that prison authorities and the Ministry are still building out a programme to ensure that those inmates are reintegrating safely into society.

During the tenor of former Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn, the ‘Fresh Start’ Programme was rolled out which provided a toolkit with the basic needs to persons who are leaving the prison system.

The Fresh Start programme forms part of a broader rehabilitation and reintegration strategy by the Government of Guyana. The initiative focuses on training prisoners in vocational skills while they are incarcerated and providing them with equipment upon release to facilitate sustainable livelihoods outside of prison walls.

Recent national policy decisions also reflect an intensified focus on corrections reform. In the 2026 national budget, the Government earmarked $141.8 million specifically for inmate and officer training to support rehabilitation efforts, while $1.5 billion was allocated for further infrastructure upgrades to prison facilities.

Longstanding elements of the Fresh Start initiative include vocational training opportunities in tailoring, joinery, digital skills, anger management, and other fields offered across prison locations.

In fact, back in March, Chief Investment Officer (CIO) and Head of the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest), Peter Ramsaroop stated that rehabilitated prisoners will be critical in addressing Guyana’s growing labour shortage as the country experiences unprecedented economic growth.

He argued that the solution to the problem lies in rethinking the role of the correctional system and explained that it must not be seen as a place of confinement but as one of workforce development.

According to Ramsaroop, rehabilitation must be tied directly to national growth, ensuring inmates leave the system equipped to contribute meaningfully to society.

Ramsaroop highlighted agriculture as a major opportunity, noting that Guyana is positioning itself to be the breadbasket of the Caribbean, capitalising on the billions spent annually on food imports across the region. He encouraged both officers and inmates to think beyond their immediate roles and tap into the opportunities that are being made available.

He issued a direct challenge to prison officers to see their work as part of the larger mission of the nation.

With the labour demands expected to increase as the country continues to develop rapidly, Ramsaroop maintained that recidivism through training and employment is essential.