Retiring Assistant Police Commissioner Carlton Adams says more must be done to tackle alarming recidivism rates which see some convicts committing fresh crimes just days after their release.

Figures released earlier this year, show the re-offending rate stands at 78 percent up from 68 percent from the previous year. A total of 332 prisoners re-offended.

However the number of inmates enrolled in development or treatment programmes actually fell although prison numbers also went down.

Mr. Adams told The Royal Gazette: "Unless and until there is a holistic view taken and action taken it simply means we are going to be treading water forever."

He said Police could round up and help convict criminals, but what happened afterwards would determine whether they re-offended when released.

"Something is going wrong somewhere with individuals who are incarcerated, many come right back out and within days or weeks are committing crimes again," said Mr. Adams.

He said in the UK, social services and Police come together to deal with shared clients.

"There are helping professions here who may have solutions but I think someone needs to say, 'we have this problem, how are we to tackle it?'

"There are a number of initiatives, like the drug court for example, but I am not aware of an initiative that encompasses all of the helping professions under one chair to take an overall view."

He said some prisoners had become institutionalised they commit offences in order to go back. "I am aware of an individual who has committed some serious crimes in his time who has said, 'I can't live outside'.

"Some of them have very deep-seated issues which result in them having a dependency-type personality."

United Bermuda Party Shadow Attorney General Mark Pettingill fears Bermuda's appalling recidivism rate will only get worse as the economy declines.

"When your economy starts to sink, your crime rate will go up."

Mr. Pettingill, who is a criminal defence lawyer, said the re-offending rate was due to several other factors including increasing drug use, problems in education, Police staffing and the lack of rehabilitation programmes in prison.

"The barometer of a failing Government is recidivism it reflects a failure of so many programmes from education to the economy," said Mr. Pettingill. "We have a Government which has problems in all of those areas."

He claimed that few months ago there was no sexual offenders programme in prison.

"If you put a man into prison for a sexual offence and he doesn't have a programme to be involved in when he comes out he is going to be a recidivist."

The flow of drugs into Bermuda was soaring and making it harder for released addicts to stay on the straight and narrow, said Mr. Pettingill.

He said people were tempted back into crime if they felt they couldn't get a job or an education to make it in normal society.

Police manpower has been lacking he added, while stating that Government's answer was to blame the Governor, despite the fact that funding of posts was Government's responsibility.

Money had also been cut from Narcotics and surveillance on the docks, claimed Mr. Pettingill.

And he said life skills training and psychological counselling were sorely lacking for inmates.

"There is no follow up, it's roll them in, roll them out. It's a revolving door."

Mr. Pettingill said Government's Mirrors programme, which helps wayward teenagers was excellent, but help was needed for prisoners.

Prison Commissioner Edward Lamb denied claims there was no sex offenders programme.

He said: "We have a number of programmes in place which address all the issues that people bring to us when they are incarcerated."

He said there were programmes for sex offenders, violent offenders and drug addicts as well as GED and arts courses.

The prison service had taken on a new psychologist and was hiring another one in the new year to help with the sex offenders programme, as well as with the violent offenders and anger management programmes, said Mr. Lamb.

Asked about the recidivism statistics he said: "It depends how you are measuring recidivism.

"In real terms that rate is much lower that 78 percent would probably include those incarcerated for civil offences like non-payment of child support. But for criminality that recidivism rate is much lower."

However figures in this year's Budget book, which contains a huge range of statistics, shows civil offenders made up only 13 percent of Bermuda's recidivism rate while traffic offenders made up nine percent.

The largest categories recorded in those figures are crimes against property, committed by 116 people or 27 percent of the total, and crimes against people, which were committed by 60 people or 14 percent of the total.

Mr. Lamb said recidivism at any rate was unacceptable and it was a community problem.

"Corrections does as much as it can with what it has in order to get people on the right track. To a large degree we are successful."