Her Majesty’s Cayman Islands Prison Service and the University of the West Indies Open Campus have inked a deal that will give inmates access to a wide slate of UWI’s courses.
“This partnership is significant to both institutions… it is the first to be formerly implemented in the Caribbean,” said Beverly Shirley, an academic programmes officer for UWI Open Campus, at a Cayman Islands government press conference on Thursday, 12 Aug.
In 2015, HMCIPS established its own academic and vocational training programme, with about 200 inmates completing a range of courses from basic literacy and numeracy to associate and bachelor’s degrees as well as vocational training programmes.
After the briefing, HMCIPS director Steven Barrett told the Cayman Compass when he originally took the helm of the prison service he had hoped to convince businesses to relocate some of their departments within the Northward complex as a means to help prisoners gain employment. However, due to capacity issues this programme has been delayed.
“Instead, we struck up a partnership with Michael Myles with Inspire Cayman to help train our inmates, which has worked quite well,” said Barrett. “This new memorandum of understanding will see UWI certifying the programmes we currently provide and give us access to their resources. Currently we have a higher demand for these educational services than we can provide through our rehabilitation services.”
Through the deal, prisoners can access courses at at cost of $150 per inmate – an expense which will be carried by the government. Prison officers will also be allowed to sign up for the programme.
According to the Cayman Islands Independent Monitoring Board’s 2020 Annual Report, 205 prisoners were incarcerated at the end of December 2020, with 183 men at HMP Northward, and 13 women HMP Fairbanks. The remaining nine men are housed at the Enhanced Rehabilitation Unit which is also located at Fairbanks.
The new MOU has been touted as a means to reduce Cayman’s recidivism rate, which in 2020 was 15.85% for men and 16.67% for women.
“We need to make sure that when they come out, they have the best chances of staying out,” said Home Affairs Minister Bernie Bush at the press conference.
“This is a pioneering partnership; we will look forward to replicating it with our other community partners,” said Barrett
UWI was established in 1938 by Royal Charter. As of 2020, UWI had five physical campuses throughout the Caribbean and was ranked in the top 2.5% of universities globally.
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