A RANGE of non-custodial sentences could soon be drafted into the judicial process.

Suggestions from a formal report on how Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) initiatives might work were presented to representatives from Bermuda and various Caribbean islands earlier this month by Charles Ekins, a part-time judge in England and Wales and a former Attorney General of Montserrat.

Mr. Ekins had been hired by the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office to produce a report after attorneys general present at last year's Overseas Territories conference highlighted the need to address an upward trend in prison populations.

Mr. Ekins completed the report in February of this year.

He discussed those recommendations with representatives from the Caribbean Overseas Territories and Bermuda at a meeting in Tortola this month. Included in the group of social workers, health planners, and officials from child and family services, the court and prisons, was Kevin Monkman, Permanent Secretary for Health and Family Services, and Gina Hurst-Maybury of Government's Probation Services.

Neither was available for comment yesterday.

"The challenge is to try to combat the causes of crime without diminishing public confidence in the criminal justice system," The Virgin Islands Daily News reported Mr. Ekins as saying. "Prison is a waste of human resources, but it is not just a question of easing the population of prisons. It's very much a social issue in trying to determine what's in the best long-term interest of the community."

The ATI initiative was enabled through amendments to Bermuda's Criminal Code in 2001. The amendments allow for the establishment of a drug court, leniency in sentencing, shorter periods of incarceration prior to eligibility for parole and intermittent imprisonment periods. The amendments also opened training and work opportunities to prisoners. Among the eligibility criteria listed, are the nature of the offence, previous convictions, expression of remorse, reparations, the offender's background and religious growth.

Government Senator at the time, Michael Scott introduced the legislation and said the changes were being made "in recognition of the high level of imprisonment among our citizenry and in particular, the high number of young male blacks in prison".

In July of this year, however, Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Ground and Acting Senior Magistrate Carlisle Greaves were called on to argue the merits of ATI after Appeals Court judges voiced frustration that lawyers were citing the Code "ad nauseam" to keep their clients out of jail.

"Defence lawyers will put forward what will get their client a lighter sentence," Mr. Justice Ground told The Royal Gazette. "That is their job and I don't blame them for it. It is up to the judge then to decide if it would help. It's the judge's job to see through them and determine if they are just trying to get a shorter sentence. That's the way the system works."

He explained that ATIs were not to be used where the crime was so serious it necessitated immediate incarceration.

"Because of that, at least in the Supreme Court, it should be quite rare when one falls back on the alternatives to incarceration."