While we suspect that just about everyone is agreed on the need for a halfway house, the most important factors of how it is to be run and where it will be located are still to be decided. These are important considerations because they may mean the difference between success and failure for the facility.

This halfway house should not simply be a place where prisoners being discharged can sleep while they find somewhere to live. That concept is the one which governs the homeless night shelters now operated by the Salvation Army with Government help. These shelters take people in for the night and put them back on the streets for the day where they inevitably return to the environment which was a problem in the first place. A place to sleep is helpful but it is not enough.

This has to be a caring facility which provides some guidance toward a successful return to Bermudian society. For prisoners who have been incarcerated for long terms, the transition is not an easy one. There are temptations to return to the old environment and reoffend. But there are also problems in adjusting to life outside an "everything supplied'' institution.

Prisoners often face family problems and have problems finding jobs. They also often have psychological and social problems associated with a return to daily living. These ought to be serious concerns if we mean what we say about rehabilitating prisoners.

It seems to us that Bermuda is very quick to lock people away and Bermudians are very free in suggesting longer prison terms for almost everything. We should be just as eager to return offenders to society as productive individuals.

Assuming that we ever get the new prison open, Bermuda will finally have a chance at some meaningful rehabilitation. A prisoner who does not reoffend is a person who does not go on costing Bermuda huge sums of money in prison keep.

Lest we sound totally mercenary, let us say that while rehabilitation is cheaper than incarceration, it is also much more desirable for society and for the prisoner.

Toward that end, we have been promised that the new prison will deal in rehabilitation rather than simply incarceration. Clearly it would be foolish to try to rehabilitate people in prison and then dump them out with little or no support system. And we do envisage this halfway house as part of a real support system designed to help the prisoner to adjust socially and financially. Too often people return to a bad environment, from which prison removed them, and simply resume bad behaviour.

Ideally a halfway house should be located centrally for convenience of finding and keeping jobs but we do not think it should be in Hamilton. It might be too easy and too tempting in Hamilton to return to old habits. There should be enough freedom in the halfway house to allow for comfort and growth and enough discipline to discourage repeat offending. There should be an atmosphere in the house which is acceptable to everyone.

Therefore how the halfway house is run will take careful consideration rather than an automatic acceptance of the Salvation Army.