facilities and will instead try to utilise available manpower more effectively, it was announced yesterday.

Social Services Minister Harry Soares told The Royal Gazette yesterday that he had received a report on the prison service from Management Services and had taken it to Cabinet.

As with any report, he continued, there were recommended items which could be put in place immediately while other ideas needed more time to be developed.

Mr. Soares said the prison service was "very complex'' and employed close to 200 members of staff who ran the facilities and accompanied prisoners whenever they had to be taken to either court or the hospital.

The report showed that one problem with the operation was that it was split between four locations -- Westgate Correctional Facility, the Co-ed Facility, the Prison Farm and Prison Headquarters at Prospect.

It recommended that the Co-ed facility and the Prison Farm be run together so the management structure would not be duplicated, thus freeing up manpower.

Officers could also be scheduled more effectively so shifts would be staffed more appropriately, he continued.

For example, Mr. Soares said, fewer officers were needed on duty at night than on days.

He said teleconferencing -- where prisoners stood in front of a camera at the prison and appeared on a monitor in the court room -- was also suggested as an alternative to taking prisoners to court for a two minute mention.

Mr. Soares said his department would also look at making more use of Westgate's infirmary to reduce the times prisoners were taken to hospital.

And the report also recommended installing an improved computer system to help make the officers' jobs easier.

The report also addressed recent accusations that prisoners were not being offered rehabilitation programmes to help them return to society easier upon release.

A "surprising statistic'', said Mr. Soares, was that 75 percent of prisoners -- in any one year -- were incarcerated for six months or less.

Many of them were on remand while they waited for trial and were not given programmes as they could be bailed at any time, he continued.

If sentenced with that time in jail taken into account, he said, they often faced a very short period of incarceration before being released.

Mr. Soares said programmes had to be re-examined so they could be used during these shorter periods of time and help inmates even quicker.

The news comes despite recent protests -- and industrial action -- from prison officers who said facilities were under-staffed, decision-making was inconsistent and there had been a decrease in educational programmes for inmates.