very similar to that of the Police Service.

We have spent astronomical sums of money on the new Dockyard prison and called it the Westgate Correctional Facility only to find that we do not know how to run it. The prison was built because of political pressure on Government over the conditions at the old Casemates prison. Somehow it was forgotten that a new modern building does not automatically make a good prison. That is a lesson we have to learn for the new mega school at Prospect.

The prisons Bermuda needs today would be set up for rehabilitation and not just for confinement. A relatively large number of Bermudians go to jail, too many for a small community where problems should be easier to deal with, and the solution is rehabilitation and not just "lock them up''. If you lock them up without rehabilitation, then they come out, reoffend and return to jail. We have to learn that it is less wasteful of valuable human beings and less costly to the public to rehabilitate than it is simply to confine.

The public was led to believe that the new prison would be able to provide meaningful rehabilitation as well as such things as counselling for drug abusers and sex offenders. Indeed, the need for rehabilitation was given to the public as a primary reason for a new prison. Casemates did not have the space or the facilities, but the new prison would be geared to help prisoners.

That does not appear to have happened. We are still locking them up in the same old way, just in a newer facility. Drug abusers can still get their drugs and sex offenders can have their sexual problems magnified in prison. In fact, there are far more internal complaints about the new prison than there ever were about Casemates. Now we have a Canadian report which trashes the operation of the prisons.

The Minister responsible for prisons, Harry Soares, is already defensive. The public is tired of huge and expensive facilities which become a problem, just take a look at the National Stadium. Then too, given what happened to education, this newspaper has grave reservations about all Canadian reports. A Canadian report, not the Education Planning Team, pushed the Prospect mega school. We dread a suggestion that our prisons need a Canadian review or a Canadian management expert.

Right now Bermuda plays a dangerous game of pretend. We try to fool ourselves that we are rehabilitating prisoners. We do not admit that the "correctional facility'' does very little correcting.

Magistrates constantly order prison rehabilitation when they pass sentence.

They must know that such treatment seldom happens. A kind of charade goes on.

A court sentence is accompanied by the instruction that the accused should receive treatment, treatment which apparently does not exist. The person goes to prison, is only confined, is released, reoffends, returns to court and the magistrate is told that no treatment was provided.

If we do not rehabilitate, then we should admit the fact and not pretend to ourselves and to the courts and to the prisoners that any help will be provided. We then have to admit that right now we have a very expensive lock-up with a revolving door.