Attorney General Larry Mussenden gave the Opposition an 'F' for their Budget reply on the allocation of funds at the Department of Corrections.

Sen. Mussenden reiterated on Wednesday much of what Home Affairs Minister Randy Horton said on March 8 and outlined how the $24 million budget will be used.

He spoke of the educational opportunities available to inmates saying that courses ranged from maths to culinary skills. He spoke of the pilot programme that will tag parolees and the need to stop drugs getting to inmates.

Sen. Mussenden also mentioned that the Transitional Living Centre will receive $1 million, or four percent of the budget, to assist inmates move from life behind bars to civilian life.

He said the programme was vital to Bermuda and since it was established in 2001, 50 prisoners had completed it and more than half of that number have not re-offended.

Sen. Mussenden told the Senate that the 2001 Repatriation Act has also saved the Government a lot of money which could be used elsewhere in the budget.

The Act enables foreign criminals to be repatriated to their home country. Each prisoner costs the Government $68,000 a year.

Six inmates have been repatriated to their home countries to serve the remainder of their sentences.

Though the process is time-consuming, the end result is worth because Government does not have to pay to incarcerate a non-national for years at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said.

Sen. Mussenden also told the Senate that mandatory random drug testing has been introduced and ten to 20 percent of prisoners will be randomly chosen every month to be tested. Prisoners who test positive will be stripped of some of their privileges for a period of time.

But Opposition Senate Leader Kim Swan said the corrections system was failing.

"What we're doing obviously is not working and we need to grapple with this problem in a more progressive and aggressive way," he said.

He also asked if alarm bells had been fixed and if the ion-scan machine was working. He was told that both were in working order.

Opposition Sen. Gina Spence Farmer was pleased that there has been an increase in drug treatment enrolment and noted that the number one offence in Bermuda is crimes against property.

She speculated that the offenders were probably trying to find money to support a drug habit and said the Island needs to deal with its drug problem.

And fellow Opposition Sen. E.T. (Bob) Richards suggested that with a high rate of recidivism the Department should change its name from corrections because it wasn't correcting anything.

Sen. Mussenden labelled the UBP trio's response to his speech as terrible.

"This is the worst response I have ever seen from an Opposition," he said. "The public deserves better. I give them an 'F'."