So far, Westgate has not lived up to its promise. In response to justified public pressure over conditions at the old Casemates prison, government built a hugely expensive new prison. While conditions there are doubtless a great improvement on Casemates, there is little sign that the rehabilitation we were all promised is taking place. We were told that rehabilitation was virtually impossible given the conditions and the crowding at Casemates but that it would be a standard part of incarceration at Westgate. Yet Westgate seems to be Casemates business as usual.

We do understand that providing treatment and rehabilitation is not without problems. People have to want treatment and they have to want rehabilitation.

You can provide the facilities but individuals have to cooperate. It does seem that prisoners at Westgate often refuse the programmes offered. That is not helped by the fact that, as the Minister of Health has admitted publicly, there are drugs in prison. Some people have even said that it is easier to get them in prison than outside.

A question has to be asked? If drugs are available in prison, can you reasonably expect prisoners with a drug problem to accept rehabilitation? Those people who complain that Government spent millions on Westgate only to lock Bermudians away are not helping. Westgate was built in response to strong public complaints about conditions at Casemates. It has to be remembered that almost immediately Government began to spend far more on revising the school system, including the state-of-the art new CedarBridge Academy. To suggest as some people do that Government cared more about locking people away than educating them is untrue and that statement is too often used in an attempt to score political points.

However the fact remains that it is not sensible to put people in prison and fail to rehabilitate them, and then return them to the public unrehabilitated, angry and further criminalised by their prison stay. Without rehabilitation they return to their old lifestyle and almost inevitably back to prison where they are a huge drain on public funds. Rehabilitation is far more effective and, in the end, less expensive.

We should not go on with a revolving door prison. We have already suffered from that self defeating system in drugs treatment. It does not work. It is bad for the individuals involved and it is bad for Bermuda.