Any hopes of rehabilitating prisoners in Bermuda have ?gone with the wind? until the prison service is reformed, the UBP claimed yesterday.

And Shadow Home Affairs Minister Maxwell Burgess backed the Prison Officers? boycott of the ongoing Caribbean and UK Overseas Territories conference describing them as having been treated ?with nothing short of contempt?.

The prison service, who went on strike earlier this year in an attempt to depose Prison Commissioner John Prescod, has hit the headlines again this week after its union voted to boycott an international conference.

And Mr. Burgess believes while there is ongoing disquiet and frustration in the service over working conditions then the inmates will suffer alongside staff, with Government aims to make prisons more than just places to incarcerate offenders unworkable.

?Prison staff have been treated with nothing short of contempt,? Mr. Burgess told

?Just before the general election when they downed tools, Government wooed them back to work, offering to pay them and promising quarterly meetings with the Premier and reviews of the service.

?So they slogged away and got on with it but now all we ever hear about is productive meetings but then nothing comes afterwards.

?I think whether Mr. Prescod was to go or not, that is only a small part of the problem.

?Government and the Prison Officers Association need to sit down, work out what is doable, put together a timetable for reform and just get on with it.

?I think the association has shown remarkable restraint.?

He added that with a de-motivated and rapidly depleted workforce the aims of correctional facilities to offer rehabilitation in offenders was never going to work.

?Staff are walking out because they have been throwing their arms up in the air and saying ?enough is enough?,? he continued.

?It is unacceptable to run correctional facilities under these terms. Any hope of making these places more than just a place to lock people up have gone with the wind.?

And with the Bermuda Police Association also in ongoing talks with the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs, Mr. Burgess said that the state of labour relations under the PLP would ?shock? most people in Bermuda.

?It is to safe to say that no one would have believed that under a Progressive Labour Party Government there would be all this haggling and nickel and diming with the community ? especially when the objectives have been defined,? he added.

?It is something that has probably come as a shock to everyone.?