Commissioner of Prisons, Abdulla Munaz has said that officers of the Maldives Correctional Service (MCS) “must also be rehabilitated.”
While he was summoned to the parliament’s committee on national security for questioning on Saturday night, the prisons commissioner said that previous governments had been "negligent” to prisons and that there is immense work to be done to reform the system.
When inquired on whether officers previously identified to have used force on inmates are still on MCS’ payroll, Munaz said that there are none “labeled as such.”
However, he added that officers noted as such “are not made to deal with inmates directly.”
“In the past, punishing inmates was like a culture. We do not have this culture now. Just like we have to rehabilitate the inmates, officers must be rehabilitated as well. We have to change their strict nature, to correctional officers. We used to call the prisons officers in the past,”Prisons Commissioner Munaz
He said that they now want all officers to be “correctional officers,” to ensure that inmates are rehabilitated before re-entering the society.
Despite the work, the prisons commissioner said that the incident occurred because of officers “that do not obey orders.”
In addition, Commissioner Munaz confirmed that the recent scuffle occurred at Maafushi Prison’s remand jail, Unit 4.
He said that some of these detainees have to spends years in the remand jail waiting for trials to conclude, and added that this weaken their minds.
Further noting that they do not have a system to separate convicts and those in remand, Munaz said that he has approached both the Prosecutor General (PG) Office and the Supreme Court on the matter since his appointment in December 2018, seeking to expedite such cases.
While this is yet to happen, the commissioner said that the details of his attempts will be shared during second part of the committee, which was held in secret.
The prisons commissioner was also inquired on reports that the inmates’ heads were forcefully shaved afterwards.
Confirming this, Munaz said that as per regulations introduced in 2015, all inmates must be clean-shaven, but that this has not been the case due to lack of resources.
While the commissioner said that he does not believe that officers had acted accordingly by shaving their heads in this case, he said that there is no action that can be taken due to the regulation.
The prison brawl is to have started after an inmate attacked an officer. While he is to have used an iron rod, Commissioner Munaz declined to reveal details on how such weapons are being smuggled into the prison, during the meeting held in public.
