Now, last night we showed you a snippet of the different outdoor activities that the prisoners can keep busy with - they can build all kinds of furniture including coffins, design different wooden craft, they can do mechanic work, rear chickens and pigs, and cook, among other things. It is part of the rehabilitation program that should transform these criminals into positive and productive citizens. Murrillo told us more about the program and one of the inmates also shared how the program has impacted him.
Virgilio Murrillo, Acting CEO, Belize Central Prison
"We have the Ashcroft Rehabilitation Center that offers rehabilitation program to the inmates. It is 3 phase program and it ranges a lot on the 12 step program so that caters to prisoner's criminogenic needs as well as their addiction whatever addiction they may have whether it is drugs or otherwise. But it is a program that is designed to let them first of all admit that they can't really help themselves and they need help and secondly it allows them to have what you call discussions among themselves as inmates where they can share experiences and that kinds of thing."
"This program has been so effective that the prison recently introduced it to the remanded inmates, you will recall I showed you the stats a while ago and there are prisoners that are on remand for excessively long periods and we saw the effectiveness of this addiction rehabilitation program and we were impressed with it so much that we decided that, okay if these guys are going to be here for 5 years and more might as well we see what we can do to them."
"It rebuilds their entire character it rebuilds their whole humanness if you want to call it that."
Rennick Baiza, Inmate
"Coming to jail and join some rehabilitation program that they offer here at the Kolbe Foundation, I find myself working on my anger issue, I find myself working on rehabilitating myself and get over my addiction so whenever I turn back and go back to road I will be a more productive individual and not only for my sake but for the sake of my 4 boys and 1 daughter that I have out there."
"After this when I leave the prison I think I will try to find a career where I can try help youths like you all right here and talk to you all and make you understand that jail isn't the way to go. If you follow rules in life you can never go wrong."
Since another version of the Ashcroft Rehabilitation Center program was introduced in June, 65 inmates have passed through the program. It lasts 90 days and every month there is a new intake of prisoners.
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