46% of Corradino inmates are ‘relapsers’

Forty-six percent of the inmates at the Corradino Correctional Facility were inmates, Labour MP Deo Debattista said.

Addressing parliament during the budgetary vote for the home affairs ministry, Debattista said that the high rate was also one of the lowest rates among EU member states.

He urged government to come up with schemes helping inmates to find work once they are released from prison.

“Over the past five years, only three inmates found a job with the government. There are no records of others who managed to find a job with the public or private sector,” he said. “The government should be the first to create a scheme to help prisoners find a job once they return to the community.”

Studies, he said, showed that 1.2% of a population were psychopaths while the figure goes up to between 13% and 15% in prisons. He said that psychological assessments should be carried out on inmates while further studies should take place to understand why prisoners relapsed.

He said, that psychological, psychiatric and social assessments would help determine the qualities of a persons and therefore make the search for a job easier.

Referring to the debate on whether prostitution should be legalized or not, Debattista said that prostitutes should be taught of the risks of their activities.

“Many of them wouldn’t know the risks of prostitution; others would learn by experience or as an aftermath.”