University of the West Indies Professor Dwayne Devonish wants to see Barbados’ reintegration programme “strongly resourced” and an “all-of-country approach” to helping people released from prison.

He was addressing yesterday’s opening of a two-day symposium being held in celebration of the Barbados Probation Service’s 80th anniversary at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

“Rehabilitation and reintegration must go hand in hand, and if we still have a punitive style in our justice system . . . we need to do better. Once that individual leaves the system to go back into society, they have to be able to function.