Cell home for busy businessman

The Herald, March 14, 1998 LONDON. — A jailed fraudster in Britain is earning more than £30 000 (Z$900 000) a year working for an advertising agency while serving his prison sentence.

He drives from the prison in North Yorkshire every day in his own car to work in nearby York, returning to his cell at night, for which he pays £24 ($620) a week in board and lodging.

Graham Etson (41), jailed for 21 months for defrauding a bank of £400 000 ($10,5 million), also has a cellphone. All the money he earns is held for him by the prison until his release.

It costs the State at least £24 000 ($620 000) a year to keep a prisoner. The fraudster is one of eight prisoners in the jail allowed out each day to earn a living under a resettlement scheme to prepare low-risk inmates for the life outside.

But the scheme was branded a disgrace by prison officers at the jail, who earn between £14 500 ($377 000) and £20 000 ($520 000) a year.

LESSONS FOR TODAY

◆ Jails act as a form of punishment for offenders, but some correctional systems also focus more on rehabilitation of offenders to prepare them for reintegration into society once they have served their sentences.

◆ In some countries including Zimbabwe, there are open pris- ons where prisoners are trusted to complete sentences with minimal supervision and perimeter security and are often not locked up in their prison cells. Prisoners may be permitted to take up employment while serving their sentence.

◆ Correctional systems that aim to reform offenders are good but they should not be done in a manner that aggravates others as the case in the story.