Bermuda's prison population dropped by almost a quarter in three years, Government has revealed. The decrease means the Island plummeted from having the joint second highest prison population in the world in 2003, to being at least 181st last year.

Minister of Social Rehabilitation Dale Butler attributed the success to the Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) initiative, which provides community programmers and supervision to ensure incarceration is a last resort for non-violent offenders.

"We're delighted that we've seen this change. One of the key recommendations of the Tumim Report was to stop imprisoning people for misdemeanours (less serious offences) and we have done that," he said, referring to a damning report in 1992 calling for a radical overhaul of the criminal justice system.

At the time ATI was launched in 1999, said the Minister, "we were more punitive than rehabilitative and persons were being incarcerated at an alarming rate, averaging approximately 300 each year, for seemingly minor offences such as driving while disqualified".

In 2003, the Department of Court Services evolved under the umbrella of ATI to administer supervision in the community and expand rehabilitation programmers. The Department developed an integrated management system bringing the courts, treatment service providers, Corrections and the Police together to work in tandem.

Statistics revealed by Mr. Butler show the Island's prison population dropped from around 350 incarcerated in 2002/03 to 266 in 2006 — a decrease of 24 percent — as a result. More than the same period, the number of people under community supervision rose from 165 to 326.

The re-offending rates for those on community supervision was 7.26 percent in 2005/06, which Mr. Butler hailed as a demonstration of ATI's effectiveness. He also praised the fact that there was no re-offending in the drug court treatment programme and parole during that period as "remarkable".

Noting how a reduced prison population has a positive effect on the families of those who would otherwise be jailed, the Minister also revealed that Government is searching for "creative means" to avoid imprisoning fathers who commit crimes. This will come alongside other initiatives in the pipeline such as electronic tagging of criminals in the community, a mental health treatment court programme and efforts to stop youngsters offending in the first place.

Mr. Butler listed challenges the ATI initiative faces as including new legislation that has recently increased terms of imprisonment for offences such as sex assaults and bladed weapon possession, and what he termed "the lack of adequate treatment provision in the areas of mental health and substance abuse".

He pledged that these were being looked at on a wider front, to address the anomalies. Reprinted from The Royal Gazette