EDITORIAL - Rehabilitating criminals

The Department of Justice has scrapped a plan to set up a mega prison facility in Nueva Ecija. The DOJ estimated that such a facility would cost some P150 billion over 20 years. Instead, according to DOJ officials, the funds earmarked for the facility would be used to construct additional prison buildings in existing penal colonies and another regional prison in Pangasinan or one of the Ilocos provinces. 

Building additional prisons around the country would make it easier for people to visit incarcerated relatives, DOJ officials said. They have apparently taken into account the case of the mega rehabilitation facility donated to the government by controversial Chinese tycoon Huang Rulun. The 10,000-bed center in Laur, Nueva Ecija remains underutilized. The former head of the Dangerous Drugs Board attributed this to the inaccessibility of the facility to families with members needing drug rehabilitation. The facility may be converted into an academy for drug enforcement units, with smaller rehabilitation centers instead set up in other parts of the country.

This is the same approach now being considered by the DOJ in constructing more national prisons. While the department ponders its final move, the government should also consider building additional local jails, which are under the Department of the Interior and Local Government’s jail management bureau and provincial governments. 

Local jails were already congested even before the Duterte administration launched its intensified crackdown on illegal drugs. The system was not prepared for the flood of drug suspects tossed behind bars, apart from those arrested for other offenses. The government may also consider constructing additional prisons for women as well as special facilities for juvenile offenders and those convicted of white-collar crimes.

The state must make it clear that crime does not pay. Many convicted criminals, however, deserve a second chance to become productive members of society. Alongside punishment, the thrust of modern penology is corrections. This starts with the provision of adequate prison facilities.