Eight inmates of the Georgetown Prison on Wednesday graduated from rehabilitative anger management training.
During the graduation ceremony Director of Prisons (ag) Gladwin Samuels spoke about the importance of inmates developing their ability to exercises self-control through anger management techniques.
“The Prison is an environment with which if you don’t exercise self-control you can, in layman’s terms, ‘involve yourself’, because for various reasons people can provoke unnecessary situations.
“A little situation can be blown out of proportion quite easily especially if persons do not develop the ability to effectively cope with the challenges they will face while being incarcerated,” he stated.
The Prisons Director added: “The Prison Environment is one in which control of anger is key for survival, it could be the thin line between life and death or the thin line between freedom and continued imprisonment.”
The Director noted that with the prison population is now 2, 069; of that total 724 are male convicted inmates between the ages of 18-35.
He explained that most of these inmates are in prison because of their inability to cope with anger issues.
At the event, which was held in the Georgetown Prison Conference Room, graduating inmate Mohamed Ali shared what he learnt from the training.
“We learnt about anger and how anger could affect people. One of the most important things I learnt in the programme is that there is good and bad, forgiveness and apologies.”
Mohamed told the media that the race is not for the swift but for those who can endure, noting that he and his colleagues consider themselves warriors for being able to complete the 12-week training programme that many could not.
Nicklon Elliot, Officer In charge of Georgetown Prison ‘A’ gave some insight as to the impact of the programme.
“There would have been a reduction in violence at the location and those persons who were at the programme would have become mentors to the others at the location.
“You are aware by now that the location is one that is dynamic in terms of its condition and that by itself caused a lot of conflict among prisoners.”
Those who graduated are: Lennox Roberts, Affiba Yenkana, Alex Higgins, Colin Grant, James Hunte, Tyrel Peters, Trevor Williams and Mohamed Ali.
This is the third batch to graduate from the training.
