Cutting of budget for prison ‘should not happen’- Hon Maduro-Caines

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The budget given in the 2023 draft estimates for the prison was $4,139,900, compared to$4,382,700 for 2022. Photo: VINO/File

Stating that the National Unity Government must get it’s priority right, Sixth District Representative Hon Alvera Maduro-Caines has lamented the reduced budget for His Majesty’s Prison (HMP) in the 2023 Budget Estimates. Photo: YouTube

DUFF’S BOTTOM, Tortola, VI- Stating that the National Unity Government must get its priorities right, Sixth District Representative Hon Alvera Maduro-Caines has lamented the reduced budget for His Majesty’s Prison (HMP) in the 2023 Budget Estimates.

“Mr Speaker, I notice the budget for the prison was cut. This should not happen,” Hon Maduro-Caines said at the Continuation of the Ninth Sitting of the Fourth Session of the Fourth House of Assembly (HoA) to debate the 2023 Budget on December 20, 2022.

The budget given in the 2023 draft estimates for the prison was $4,139,900, compared to $4,382,700 for 2022.

‘Lots of rehabilitation programmes needed’- Hon Maduro-Caines

“There are a lot of rehabilitation programmes that need to happen in the prison, and I am of the opinion the figure that was there last year should have remained if it could not be increased, but to cut the budget of the prison, I think we need to go back to that and fix that.”

Hon Maduro-Caines reiterated that “more money is indeed needed so that we could do those programmes at the prisons.”

The 2023 Budget of the Virgin Islands (VI) was passed to the tune of $412,971,110 on December 21, 2022.

30 Responses to “Cutting of budget for prison ‘should not happen’- Hon Maduro-Caines”

HOW ? (08/01/2023, 08:18) Like (7) Dislike (1) Reply
CAN YOU REHABILITAT THOSE CRACKHEADS THAT IS LOOSE IN THE COUNTRY , WHEN THEY ARE STILL EXPOSED TO THE SOME DRUGS THAT IS EVERYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY / PLUS DOES IT LOOK NLIKE THOSE SUPERSTARS THAT WAS DRAMATISING HOW WONDERFUL IT IS O FACEBOOK UP BALO / HELLO ???? YOU NEED TO FOCUS ON CLEANING UP YOUR DISTRICT
So what (08/01/2023, 08:21) Like (10) Dislike (0) Reply
They had a right to cut the funding for the prison.
hmmmmmm (08/01/2023, 09:22) Like (17) Dislike (9) Reply
They have it toooooooo darm good up there. Cut it yes make them work for food. Take away alll lavish items. And it’s a hotel rite now not a prison
That's what needs cutting (08/01/2023, 10:00) Like (13) Dislike (11) Reply
SHE NEED TO CUT THE BUSH IN HER DISTRICT
She out of her mind (08/01/2023, 10:03) Like (9) Dislike (7) Reply
She must want to cross the floor again. Clean up the streets not make the prison a hotel. She out of her senses.
balance (08/01/2023, 10:19) Like (10) Dislike (0) Reply
When you see all the cost attached to the recommendations of the COI that must be implemented then one has to ask where the money is coming from to do all these things and still maintain what we have already. They are trying to send us towards destruction but have us do it ourselves so their hands can be clean and then have the public shouting to them to come in to rescue us. Wake up people. The plot is real.
- @blance (08/01/2023, 11:49) Like (3) Dislike (0) Reply
  100% on your comment, I understand and see what is going on. THE PLOT IS ON AND IS VERY MUCH REAL. WHOEVER STILL SLEEPING BETTER GET UP AND STOP OVERSLEEPING.
YES, TRIM THE FAT (08/01/2023, 10:22) Like (10) Dislike (5) Reply
YES, CUT THE BUDGET FOR THE PRISON. I AGREE, MAKE THEM WORK FOR THEIR MEALS, THEY SITTING AROUND/WALKING AROUND LIKE COCKROACHES PLANNING THEIR NEXT MOVE ON HOW TO BEAT THE SYSTEM THAT IS CODLING THEM. WALKING AROUND IN STREET CLOTHES AND JEWELRY LIKE THEY ARE IN A DAMN CLUB. TAKE THEM OUT AND LET THEM CLEAN UP THE ISLAND. WOULD IT NOT MAKE BETTER SENSE AND COMMON LOGIC TO UTILIZE THE INMATES TO CLEAN UP THE ISLAND LIKE OTHER NATIONS DO? I OFTEN WONDER WHAT EXACTLY IS GOING THROUGH THE DECISION MAKER MINDS IN THIS PLACE.
double standard (08/01/2023, 10:23) Like (22) Dislike (7) Reply
Hon. Caines is correct. The Governor and his crew and some of you are battling for more monies to host illegal aliens stating that they have Human rights and must be treated a certain way to avoid violating their international human rights. Well, a prisoner is a human being also and deserves the same privileges and rights.
Yessssssss (08/01/2023, 10:40) Like (8) Dislike (7) Reply
As a tax payer, in favor of slashing the prison budget. Send a bill to the family/families of the inmates every Month to cover the part of the budget that were slashed for them sitting in the Holiday Inn up the river.
@ HOW ? (08/01/2023, 11:00) Like (3) Dislike (0) Reply
I READ YOU ???? , AND FARMING WOILD OF BEEN A GOOD INCENTIVE , IF THE CUBAN MOUTH CHAMP HAD FLEX OFF HIS MUSCLES ON AGRICULTURE , THEY COULD OF BEEN WORKING THERE AND WHEN THEY HAD SERVED THEIR TIME THEY WOULD HAVE HAD A JOB WAITING FOR THEM WHEN THEY CAME OUT , BUT ????
Urdit the prison please (08/01/2023, 11:07) Like (1) Dislike (0) Reply
The prison has a leadership crisis with no fixed in the near future, Honorable are you aware officers can’t get uniforms and basic equipment to do their job form since the hurricane? If you get sick you don’t get back your out of pocket expense, the account person saying there is no money, I hope you asked for an urdit of the prison so all can understand the full nature of the disfunction
- Love Hill Bad. (08/01/2023, 12:15) Like (6) Dislike (9) Reply
  From all reports he is not the man for tbe Prison He was the best square Peg for Immigration square hole. Now he is the square Peg for Prison round hole. Was told he has no idea how to run a Prison...He would have being a better immigration chief than who is there now..Bad decisions result is failure, good decision result is success. Hill should have been immigration or Airport chief, not Prison..
  - Forbidden Truth (08/01/2023, 22:23) Like (0) Dislike (0) Reply
    @ Love Hill bad...Your mother should have been your father. All like you smile in hill face with 2 face and 9 knives in his back. But God sees all not some ALL. what does cutting a dam budget have to do with hill?
@ DOUBLE STANDARDS (08/01/2023, 11:35) Like (7) Dislike (0) Reply
IF THEY HAD TAKEN OUT A MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY , I WOULD OF LOVE TO READ YOUR WONDERFUL COMMENT ON HOW MUCH SOME OF THOSE COLD BLOODED KILLERS ARE RIGHTS TO KILL ANOTHER HUMAN BEING ( PERHAPS YOU CAN GIVE THEM YOUR ADRESS SO WHEN THEY COME OUT AND THEY WANT FLEX OFF AGAIN THEY CAN COME LOOKING FOR YOU AND VENT THEIR RIGHTS ON YOU , AM SURE YOU WON'T MIND
Envy (08/01/2023, 12:01) Like (4) Dislike (6) Reply
I love Alvera, but this isn't it.

Majority of those prisoners are up there boldly living better than us taxpayers.
They constantly remind us via social media how privileged they are in HMP. A budget cut will send the right message, not saying they should suffer but they are too comfortable if you ask me. They need to become workers, contribute to the well needed attention to the BVI's appearance instead of on the media drinking and smoking in designer daily.

Bring forward the right suggestions, Mrs.Caines! We are definitely rooting for you.
WO (08/01/2023, 12:38) Like (10) Dislike (0) Reply
They could be put to fix road and clean beaches
H M P (08/01/2023, 12:42) Like (20) Dislike (0) Reply
You can tell when people know nothing they are talking about. What rehabilitation programs are there at the prison? When you don't put money into the areas necessary for rehabilitation, don't blame anyone when reintegration doesn't look like what you hope it would. Remanded inmates are the responsibility of the police. They can eat from the road as many times as they want. When they are SENTENCED, the prison feeds them. This place is filled dwitj ignorant people who know nothing but talk much. There is no teacher at the prison. No drug counselor. Hardly any programs. Because there is no money. Can't even hire officers. BVI get real. Please.
- @H M P (08/01/2023, 17:27) Like (1) Dislike (0) Reply
  Well said.
- @H M P (09/01/2023, 09:38) Like (1) Dislike (0) Reply
  Thank you for your comment. Trust me, a lot of us knows what is going on in the prison. The inmates runs the prison system. and they let them get away with what they want and continue to breast feed them. Now if the officers start CRACKING BONES, they are going to be the ones to get the blunt of CRACKING BONES. All the officers should just walk off the job for a day or two and let the not so bright inept decision makers do the job.
My only comment (08/01/2023, 13:09) Like (2) Dislike (0) Reply
By far they were correct in trimming the Prison budget. Those inmates is up there plotting on how to beat the legal system in any which way they can. That rehabilitation thing? Seen many of them professing to be rehabilitated and once they get back on the outside, they go right back to the same lifestyle that got them clipped.
Get Real (08/01/2023, 13:23) Like (11) Dislike (2) Reply
there is a lot that can be done, Hill refuse to open the commissary so he can stop all the items he let in on a daily basis, tell the world why this prison is the only prison with out one? he can structure the prison farm lots of land up there use to grow things to smoke, invest in chicken and short term vegetables expand the pig pen, I out here as a working person eating bread and peanut butter, as soon as they reach jail they want special diet
guy (08/01/2023, 13:28) Like (9) Dislike (2) Reply
2 years free money don’t have to do a thing than blame the ministry and the governor and spite the staff he don’t like way to go you are the best
Mustang (08/01/2023, 13:43) Like (2) Dislike (0) Reply
Hon Maduro-Caines has a point. Though accused who have been convicted of violated current rules and laws, in order to return them to society better persons, there should programmes to rehabilitate them while serving their time, minimizing recidivism. Without rehabilitation, they will return to their communities abd exhibit the same behaviors that got incarcerated in the first place. Ideally, the hope is for one one to be locked up but that is not a real idealism. People will violate the rules much to our chagrin. However, prison must be more than place to lock up lawbreakers; the process must have some rehabilitative potential and value. This will require some investment to reduce the long-term cost. The overarching goal should be to invest on the front end to reduce the cost on the back end. The cost to keep people on the reservation is lower than the cost to get people back on the reservation who had left. Like roads, schools, libraries and first responders, correction facilities is also a public good.
This is one time (08/01/2023, 15:20) Like (2) Dislike (0) Reply
I’m in favor of a budget cutting in the BVI. That money can be used to help build a center for the mentally challenged or a real homeless shelter. They up there demanding what to eat, you in prison, you eat what is given to you or starve. Leave it up to me, they would be eating bologna and peanut butter sandwiches out of a brown paper bag
999 (08/01/2023, 22:45) Like (2) Dislike (0) Reply
let London provide the money for HMP
- @999 (09/01/2023, 11:24) Like (1) Dislike (0) Reply
  London did not create the persons who are now inmates at HMP. Why not ask the parents to provide money for the upkeep of their children? The Government would foot the bill for the expatriate inmates or have them do labor work for their upkeep or returnthem to their place of origin as soon as possible.
Loose mouth (09/01/2023, 06:58) Like (2) Dislike (0) Reply
Part of rehabilitation is to make things as humanely
difficult as possible for the person who is incarcerated so that they will not have the desire to return to prison. Our prisons are basically run by the inmates. The Officers are living in constant fear of being hurt by the inmates and retaliation from outside if they respond to any violent threat against their person. I hope the Hon. Minister is not only concern about a Budget cut that will impact not only the inmates but the entire prison which of course includes the welfare of the Officers.
John Crow (09/01/2023, 10:02) Like (0) Dislike (0) Reply
More than half of the officers at the prison are employees of inmates. They are the worst you can buy them for a dime.!
@ LOOSE MOUTH & JOHN CROW (10/01/2023, 12:15) Like (0) Dislike (0) Reply

IF ALL THAT YOU BOTH SAID ~ THEN WE $$%& BUT WE SHOULDN'T BE SURPRISED , ( GUNDERLEROES , MURDER AND COCAINE SEEMS TO BECOMING A PART OF OUR CULTURE NOW ) I PERSONALLY WISH THEY WOULD TAKE OUT EACHOTHER , AND LET THE COUNTRY RETURN TO ITS ONCE PEACEFUL SELF , WHERE HUMAN BEINGS CAN LIVE IN PEACE AND HARMONY WITH EACHOTHER REGARDLESS OF COLOR OR WHERE YOU COME FROM .

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Cutting of budget for prison ‘should not happen’- Hon Maduro-Caines

30 Responses to “Cutting of budget for prison ‘should not happen’- Hon Maduro-Caines”

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