SOON a P369 million worth of a reformatory facility will rise in Wangan, Calinan District that will house 5,000 offenders. This means lawbreakers are fast multiplying and a wider facility is needed.
Do we really need a wider facility to address the rapid increase of jail populace?
If I may suggest, let us first examine the cause of the jail population increase. Is it because the law enforcers are religiously working to hook the criminals? Does the law become harsher today to doom the crooks? Or do we have a lame system to promptly dispense justice especially the penniless innocents who were locked for a long period in penitentiaries?
Other countries are closing and wrecking to ash their dungeons, vaults and chambers because of decreasing felonies to almost a negligible number.
In Brazil through APAC Method for instance, a prisoner can reduce his term in jail by reading a book of reformation. Each book read, earns him a 4-day credit to reduce his sentence. The more books he reads, the shorter his term in jail. And once he is out of prison he could start a new life inspired by the readings he had inside the facility. With this program, the possibility of committing another offense and returning to the facility is remote.
Here in the Philippines in contrast, after the offender served a sentence, he still has the nerve to do the same offense and willing to serve for another years in prison because in the first place he learned nothing from his first experience.
Had our system been riveted, we could have used the P369 million funds to construct free housing for the morally upright Filipinos; provide livelihood programs; educate and feed the hungry children.
In a desperate approach, my pen in jest wish that all suspected rapists not only in the hands of Talomo Police but in all police stations throughout the country will grab a jail officer's handgun to avoid the overpopulation in the hellish reformatory facilities.
abrigodann@gmail.com
