where the Club Med employees who were let go without severance pay are concerned, but natural justice demands that the former employees of the hotel be recompensed.

According to yesterday's newspaper, the last 11 employees of the hotel, who were primarily doing security and maintenance work, were put out of work when Club Med finally left the Island. The then-Government hired a security firm to replace them.

Normal practice requires that hotel workers who lose their jobs should receive redundancy and/or severance pay. Club Med did not do this and the then-United Bermuda Party government said there was no recourse for the workers.

The new Government promised that the workers would be paid, yet nothing has happened since.

As the workers point out, a substantial amount of furniture was sold once the hotel was closed -- it is not clear where that money went, but common sense suggests that the former employees have a claim on it.

So far, this is a sordid tale of broken promises and breaches of faith, with the fact that one of the employees died this weekend adding to its poignancy.

Would it not make sense for Government to recompense the workers and to sue Club Med to get the money back? PRISON NUMBERS EDT Prison numbers Reports that Bermuda had the ninth highest rate of incarceration per capita in the world in 1999 add ammunition to those who would like to see alternative forms of imprisonment introduced.

Per capita statistics always need to be taken with a grain of salt when dealing with small communities and Prisons officials estimates that Bermuda has risen to fifth in the world since last year as a result of 35 people being imprisoned shows why.

A "bad week'' in Magistrates' Court when ten or 20 people are jailed can distort the figures dramatically, as can a week when a large number of inmates are released.

Nonetheless, few would disagree that Bermuda has a higher prison population than it should.

Magistrates get criticised for locking up people who fail to pay child support or bad debts, but jailing them is often a last resort taken against people who have consistently disobeyed court orders. They are in effect, if not in fact, jailed for contempt of court.

The same applies to drivers who continually drive while disqualified.

People who are convited for simple possession of drugs also can be jailed; there is no evidence to suggest that jailing drug users (as opposed to drug dealers) helps anyone and the sooner Bermuda gets its drugs court up and running the better.

The same applies for one of Government's best initiatives -- the alternatives to incarceration exploratory programme -- which was unveiled amid much hoopla earlier this year. The sooner the programmes moves from study to action the better.