a hard look at the entire prison system and the way Bermuda uses the system rather than just look at recent incidents. We think the incidents are the result of some poor administration and are not indications of the basic problems Bermuda has with prisons.

We think the basic problems stem from Bermuda's over-use of jail sentences. We know that polls show that Bermudians want offenders "locked up'' and that there is very little public sympathy for law breakers, especially those convicted of sexually-oriented or violent crimes. But we have to wonder how much of the violence inflicted on the public is created by incarceration or the threat of prison.

We think that by over-using prisons and, especially, by imprisoning young offenders under hard conditions, Bermuda has been training people to be criminals. It is true to say that we often imprison people who really need rehabilitation and not confinement. We often imprison people for offences which do not require incarceration in the sense that they are not a danger to other people. If you take a young man who has made a mistake, put him in prison, brutalise him, sodomise him, and develop his sense of anger, you may well produce a nasty criminal for life who is a constant danger to other people.

Prisons are to protect the public from people who are a threat to safety, especially those who are a physical danger. Prison cells are unlikely ever to teach anyone a good lesson and, when used to teach a lesson, they are most likely to teach excellent lessons in how to be angry, defensive, alienated and thoroughly criminal.

Locking up people without rehabilitation is not protection for the public in the end because it has every likelihood of returning to the public a person who is more dangerous than when sent away. We can only think that the reason Bermuda is building a larger prison, and the reason we have built more facilities at Ferry Reach is the likelihood that we will be locking up more people. We fear that prison expansion comes with the suggestion that Bermuda should fill the cells when, in fact, Bermuda should be looking at ways to reduce the inmate population.

Building bigger prisons and locking people away is the expensive way to go.

There can never be justification for keeping under "maximum security'' people who are confined for contempt of court arising from speeding charges or debt, or for such things as personal drug use, alcohol abuse and destitution. We also have to be very careful not to exercise a hang-over from the Middle Ages and use the prisons to clean up the streets. Prison is not the answer in many cases, rehabilitation is. Prison may be quicker and easier but it is only a temporary answer and rehabilitation is the more lasting solution.

If we think it is necessary to confine people for such things as contempt of court then surely electronic home confinement would be better in a country where it is difficult to escape overseas.

Every time there is an alarming incident, the public shouts, "jail them'' like the mobs who once enjoyed public hangings, without stopping to consider the end results. Right now a petition is even shouting, "flog them''. We can't jail everyone nor can we go on criminalising the young and creating racial divisions by jailing young blacks because they are easy targets.

Bermudians have to wonder if young blacks go to jail in such disproportionate numbers because "they'' want to keep the blacks in line or whether it's a kind of uncaring snobbery, "Let them eat jail.'' No, prisons are not an easy solution. They are, in fact, a destructive force which Bermuda uses far too often.