A comprehensive overhaul of the prison system is being proposed, with a focus on rehabilitation, reducing reoffending and dismantling criminal networks within Dodds Prison as part of a broader national crime prevention strategy, Minister of Home Affairs Gregory Nicholls has said.

He said: “If you fail to reform prisons beyond just housing of inmates, then we will continue to perpetuate the cycles that bedevil us. Effective prison systems have to rehabilitate offenders, have to break the strength of the criminal networks inside the prisons and reinforce nonviolent norms and identities.”

Pointing out that crime was disproportionately affecting young men in society, the minister noted that, with the current system being “largely custodial, reinforcing criminal networks and failing to reduce recidivism”, the focus must shift to reforming and strengthening the national security apparatus to reduce violence. One way to do so, he said, was through the modernisation of penal institutions.