Correctional officers receive training on human rights

A TWO-day human rights approach to prison management workshop in Lae aims to help Correctional Service (CS) officers do their work better at Buimo Prison in Morobe.
The workshop was jointly funded by the United Nations Human Rights and AusAID to enhance skills and knowledge so officers would be able to exercise human rights at a reasonable level in their line of duty.
The human rights adviser with the United Nations Human Rights, workshop facilitator Kedar Poudyal, said the workshop focused more on practice.
He said the prison could be well managed only if there was efficiency in security, the capacity to have control in the prison compound and justice.
“Justice must prevail inside the prison compound, starting from how well the prisoners are handled and the basic needs of both the prisoners and CS officers which have to be considered,” he said.
According to Poudyal, the balance among the three aspects was critical to prison management.
Poudyal said CS officers would discuss with
the facilitators some issues which they faced at Buimo.
Assistant commissioner of police northern command Peter Guinness, who opened the workshop, said the management of prisons was primarily about the management of human beings, staff and prisoners.
He said prison officers had responsibilities to ensure that prisoners were treated in a manner which was decent, humane and just.
“There must be control and the prisoners are provided the opportunity to utilise their time well so that they will be able to resettle into the
society when they are released from prison,” Guinness said.
He said prison staff were human beings and the extent to which the CS officers and prisoners recognised and observed their common humanity was the most important measurement of a decent and humane prison.