Opposition Senator Kenneth Bascome called on Government to do more to help prisoners prepare for ?the real world? outside the Westgate?s walls yesterday.

Sen. Bascome said the Transitional Living Centre (TLC), which assists prisoners get used to independent living was in the wrong place as it was still behind a fence, just 100 yards from Westgate.

?Great idea, bad location,? he said.

Sen. Bascome, who served time for an assault in 1957, said he took a special interest in rehabilitation.

He said the TLC was underfunded and understaffed and needed a halfway house to support it.

At that point Attorney General Sen. Larry Mussenden said the TLC was a halfway house.

But Sen. Bascome said a halfway house was where people released from prison lived under supervision until they find accommodation of their own. He said: ?The TLC is only one component of operating a halfway house.?

He said a halfway house should be available for prisoners to live in for six to eight months after release but he said those staying at the TLC contributed nothing to their own maintenance.

Members of the community should step forward and support the transitioning prisoners, Sen. Bascome said, assisting them to find jobs, housing and generally become part of the community.

The public shouldn?t rely fully on probation officers to do that job, he said.

?It is very difficult for one probation officer to monitor ten to 12 people,? he said.

Too often prison housed people sent away for trivial offences, said Sen. Bascome.

Sen. Bascome raised the question of what to do with parents who fail to pay child support.

He called prison sentences ?counterproductive? for these offences and called for alternative punishments to be considered, including seizing offenders cars or passports until negligent parents paid.

?It actually costs the country more sending these parents to prison then paying the child support they owe,? said Sen. Bascome.

?While they are in prison nothing is paid to the child nor do they pay for their own maintenance in prison.?

He asked how it was possible that parents were allowed to ring up debts of more than $30,000 for neglecting their financial duties of $150 a week.

He said that he knew one man who had gone to prison for three months for failing to pay child support, and upon release not only had been unable to pay his initial debt but had accrued three months additional debt for his time in prison.

He said Government should apply its Alternatives to Incarceration Scheme to juveniles before they graduated to bigger crimes. ?When you are building a home do you build the roof first or do you start with the foundation??

In response, Sen. Mussenden focused on programmes and policy that Government already has for inmates returning to society, including Westgate?s Transitional Living Centre (TLC).

He said the justice system faces a ?complex problem which the government have grappled with and successfully.

?We can?t say it?s 100 percent successful but the people who have come into contact with it believe that justice has been served.?

He said the TLC helped inmates find housing and jobs before they left but the TLC wasn?t needed for everyone.

He said Bermuda was only 22 square miles and the TLC wasn?t within the walls of Westgate.

?Sen. Bascome said it shouldn?t be where it is.?

But he said even if it was within Tucker?s Town or Front Street people would find the TLC and distract the inhabitants.

He said inmates at the Prison Farm were helped back into society by being allowed to work and save money.

Earlier Sen. Bascome had said mothers were now being sentenced for not keeping up maintenance payments but Sen. Mussenden said the law had to treat both genders equally.

Government Sen. Reginald Burrows said the TLC is a halfway house in that ex-inmates clean and cook for themselves on a rota.

They are found jobs and given alcohol and drug assessments, then given a release plan before being allowed out. Staff then do check ups.

Government Senator Raymond Tannock said people who got into debt did so knowingly and had no excuses but needed to be helped to pay up.

Opposition leader Kim Swan said Bermuda?s high recidivism rates were evidence something had broken down.

More needed to be done to get inmates prepared for the real world said Sen. Swan.

Government Sen. Walter Roban said much was being done to help ex-prisoners through Court Services, Child and Family Services, Bermuda Assessment and Referral Centre and the National Training Board.

?Court Services is still considering new programmes that will help inmates in their transition.?