Senior Officers Learn The Mandela Rules
Security, safety and humane treatment of offenders should be maintained to preserve the integrity and management of corrections systems. This was highlighted by Philipp Meissner, the crime prevention and criminal justice officer at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). He had conducted the UNODC Nelson Mandela Rules Workshop by the Fiji Corrections Services at the Novotel Hotel in Lami, Suva yesterday.
The Nelson Mandela Rules or The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 17, 2015 after a five-year revision process.
They are known as the Mandela Rules in honour of the former South African President, Nelson Mandela.
“The treatment of prisoners by the Nelson Mandela rules, which are the core international standards when it comes to minimum conditions of prison management and the treatment of prisoners,” said Mr Meissner.
“Hence upon the expressed interest by the Fiji Corrections Service, we want to strengthen their further compliance within the Nelson Mandela rules. “The workshop primarily relates to prison management so it’s really about how offenders are being treated behind bars in Fiji and the international standards of implementation.”
The two-day workshop was attended by Assistant Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, Commissioners, Officers in Charge, Supervisors, lawyers, psychologists and also representatives from the UN Human Rights Council.
“We have to ensure rehabilitation and social integration can be set often enough that imprisonment is only a temporary feature the large majority of prisoners will eventually return to society so as citizens we all have an interest in offenders coming in a better way than before,” he said.
Mr Meissner said there needed to be enough action done in rehabilitation programmes and social integration efforts.
He was pleased to hear from the Fiji Corrections Service that this was an area they invested in. Also, the Deputy Commissioner, Senior Superintendent Apimeleki Taukei, said he encouraged his senior management to ensure they practiced what they learned about the Nelson Mandela rules.