The Corrections Department yesterday introduced three newly-appointed Assistant Commissioners but just five weeks before his departure there is still no news about who will replace Commissioner Hubert Dean.

Keeva Joell-Benjamin becomes the first female Assistant Commissioner of Prisons and joins Lionel Hubert Young and Clarence Davis in vying for the top post. Mr. Dean?s last day on the job is June 20 but he could not say who would replace him. He told : ?That?s something to ask the Ministry.?

Calls to Government went unreturned yesterday.

And there are still a dozen top posts to be appointed ? four chief officer posts, four principal officers and four divisional officers despite some interviews starting back in November.

Asked about the delay Mr. Dean said he believed the Public Services Commission, which decides on appointments, still had some questions about the candidates.

?We should know something hopefully next week.?

For months people have been in acting roles which Mr. Dean said was far from ideal. ?People don?t take any ownership when they are acting, they are just hanging on to their spot. That gives us some real challenges.?

Prison Officers Association chairman Craig Clarke said there was concern about the time it was taking to make decisions about the top posts.

He said an advert had not even been placed for the Commissioner?s job although he understood one would be running this week.

?It?s still up in the air. We think it should have been decided some time back. We are asking to get a Commissioner in position as soon as possible.?

Current boss Mr. Dean said he was very happy to see the three Assistant Commissioners confirmed in their posts.

?Now we can get some real consistency, some continuity and people can be held accountable.?

He said the trio had worked as a ?great team? despite the uncertainty about their positions. ?We could not have achieved what we have had in the last year or so without them.?

, 45, who has been an acting Assistant Commissioner since 2002, has been in the prison service since 1984. He joined as a caterer but quickly found he enjoyed working with prisoners.

He said the Corrections Department was there to carry out the orders of the court but he hoped to better equip inmates with the skills to go straight upon their release. If given the Commissioner?s post he aims to improve service for offenders. ?A lot of what we have done in the past has stayed behind prison walls but I see our department as an integral part of the criminal justice system. If we don?t hold our portion to a high standard then the criminal justice system fails,? said the married father.

Sentence planning needed to be developed further but most of all he urged Bermuda public to do more to house and employ ex-offenders so they could thrive on the outside. said she was excited to be Bermuda?s first female Assistant Commissioner. The 41-year-old married mother-of-two said: ?I don?t think it has quite really hit me yet.?

She left a job in reinsurance to pursue a career in corrections in 1991 and hasn?t looked back. Asked why she had made the radical switch she said: ?I felt I could bring about some change. I like a challenge, I didn?t want to just sit behind a desk and punch numbers all day.?

The rewards have been seeing people leave prison never to return.

Asked how she would handle the top job she said priorities would include reducing recidivism and further developing staff to cope with changes in the inmates they dealt with. ran the carpenter shop when he joined the prison department in the mid-1980s and helped inmates to get their City and Guilds qualifications. He said: ?I enjoy working with young men. I was born in the ?back of town? and escaped the criminal world by the Grace of God. I want to give something back to those who didn?t.?

Married to Police Deputy Commissioner Rosanda Young he said if he was promoted again he would aim to boost training for staff to cope with new inmates and boost programmes for inmates.

Lifestyle training, communications skills, job skills and help with coping with stress and disappointment were all needed said Mr. Young. ?People have issues ten and 15-years-old but we can?t necessarily fix them in two years.?

He also appealed for the public to embrace ex-prisoners trying to stay out of jail. He added: ?I would like to see a comprehensive succession plan.?

The department had suffered from going through different phases in the last five years with no clear direction given, said Mr. Young.