New Prisons Commissioner John Prescod has promised to boost education programmes to crack down on recidivism which runs at more than 80 percent.

And Mr. Prescod, who ran Jamaica's prisons for eight years and cut reoffending rates by 50 percent, said 40 percent of Bermuda's inmates were illiterate.

He said he was shocked by the figures and said there were a small group of youngsters dropping out of school and going in and out of prison.

He said: "I have the answers. It's for us to get community awareness and the educational process going and allowing the educational and correctional services to work hand in hand to deal with this small problem."

He said it was important for illiterate inmates to accept their problem and get help so they get jobs when they left prison.

He said: "There is work in Bermuda for everyone and more. In Jamaica, when juvenile inmates leave, I have to create ways of finding work for them, not so here.

"We need to change the attitude to wanting to work to be productive."

Mr. Prescod said he was aware of the problem of drugs in prison and said two members of staff were in the US getting training to operate canine units.

He said: "There are many reasons why you find drugs in tight security environment. We are working at ways of minimising that."

He said electronic drug detectors would be working soon which would slash smuggling rates tremendously.

The new Commissioner said he was committed to training staff to take over from him and had done the same thing in Jamaica.

Mr. Prescod attracted controversy in his old post. Early this week hundreds of his former employees in Jamaica were told they would receive $9.5 million in back pay after being dismissed after walking off the job in 2000 in protest of Mr. Prescod's reappointment as head of the Department of Correctional Services.

They said prisons were overcrowded, poorly staffed and workers were underpaid but Mr. Prescod had done little to address problems.

However Mr. Prescod got strong backing from Michael Tuzo, chairman of Bermuda's Prison Officers Association.

He said they had backed getting a Prisons Commissioner from overseas and had been advised at every stage to the search for a new man to replace acting Commissioner Edwin Wilson who filled in after Edward Dyer retired in April 2001.

Public Safety Minister Terry Lister said Government had searched and interviewed in the UK, Canada, the Caribbean and United Kingdom and found Mr. Prescod's philosophy chimed with Government's approach.

He said: "He oversaw the development and implementation of a national rehabilitation strategy for Jamaica's prisons, a principal contributing factor to the low recidivism rate."

Mr. Prescod stressed that he believed prison should be an option of last resort.