the cards.

Home Affairs and Public Safety Minister Paula Cox said: "We're currently preparing legislation which will enable us to monitor and better control convicted sex offenders when they're released from prison.'' Ms Cox said only 50 percent of sex offenders were currently in treatment programmes.

But she added low literacy rates "hampered'' efforts to re-educate offenders.

Ms Cox said that educational programmes for inmates should be carried out throughout the year, not just during school term times.

She added: "Money has been included for this...and a paper is in the process of being prepared.'' And she said that alternatives to prison were a keynote of policy and promised a halfway house to help rehabilitate offenders training for freedom.

Ms Cox added a review of the prison service by experts from England had identified a total of 25 major recommendations for a better set-up in the Island's jails.

But Shadow Home Affairs and Public Safety Minister Michael Dunkley said 80 percent of offenders got caught in the "revolving door'' and re-offended.

He said: "It's time now for some tough love -- prisoners have said prison is too easy.'' Mr. Dunkley added: "In one report, it refers to prison as a `baby-sitter' -- at $40,000-a-year for each prisoner, this must be the most expensive baby-sitting service in the whole world. We demand discipline and at the same time, we demand effective rehabilitation.'' Ms Cox added there had been escapes from the training school for young offenders, allegations of "inappropriate behaviour'' between staff and prisoners and alleged assaults on inmates in recent times -- and admitted the system needed improvement.

But she said there were plans to separate women offenders from young offenders -- and to take juvenile criminals out of the orbit of the prisons system altogether.

Ms Cox added that the English prison review team had said it would be "unreasonable'' to keep prisoners in cells all day because of a lack of activities for them.

But she said: "Once programmes are in place, the review said that prisoners could be locked up if they won't take part in meaningful programmes.''