Judge: Use inmates to clean towns, cities

 By ADRIAN MATHIAS

A JUDGE has called on prison authorities to use prisoners in the cleaning and beautifying of towns and cities.

“The prisoners are being kept in jails and fed three meals a day without doing any labour or work and that made our judgments on sentences with “hard labour” meaningless,” Justice Panuel Mogish said.

He made there mark when closing the National Court circuit in Central last Friday at Bomana outside Port Moresby.

He told Correctional Services officers that inmates in Bomana should be used to provide free labour in cleaning the towns and cities.

It would also show children and the general public that if they committed crimes, they could end up cleaning rubbish in public places.

Mogish also told the officers, lawyers, court clerks and interpreters at Bomana that people on remand from rural districts in Central should not be brought to Bomana prison because they learn from the convicted prisoners and become like them when they were acquitted.

He said rural police cell facilities such as the one at the Moreguina police station in Central, should cater for those on remand from the province.

He said those on remand were village men and women and they should not be mixed with the hardcore inmates at Bomana prison.  

Meanwhile Mogish, who is also the judge administrator of crimes, said 15 cases were completed with the delivery of judgment on sentences and bail applications out of total 38 cases listed.

“The court will sit for the remaining 23 cases during the next circuits in June and August,” he said.

He said most cases in Central related to sexual offences and misappropriation.

Mogish said the cases were expected to be completed by August.