HGP Nightly News – Guyana’s prison system is getting a multi-billion-dollar makeover, and it’s about more than just newer buildings and better technology. Minister of Home Affairs Oneidge Walrond laid out the government’s vision on Monday at the opening of the Guyana Prison Service Senior Officers Conference, telling an audience of correctional leaders that the days of prisons being treated as an afterthought are over.
“For too long, corrections have been treated as the forgotten arm of the justice system,” Walrond said.
The conference theme, “Fostering growth, driving synergy and securing the future of corrections”, wasn’t just rhetoric. Walrond placed it squarely within Guyana’s broader national security agenda, arguing that a country undergoing rapid transformation cannot afford to leave its correctional institutions behind.
Under President Irfaan Ali’s administration, billions of dollars are being invested across the security sector. New infrastructure, expanded training programs, technology-driven security systems, and leadership development initiatives are all part of a coordinated push to modernize the prison service.
“The transformation of the Guyana prison service is not accidental,” Walrond stated. “This transformation is the result of deliberate policy decisions by this government to strengthen and modernise our institution.” But the minister was careful to distinguish between modernization for its own sake and modernization with purpose. The goal, she emphasized, is not just more secure prisons, it’s prisons that actually work. That means rehabilitation.
Walrond made clear that rehabilitation is not a soft alternative to punishment but a strategic necessity. Vocational training, education, psychological support, and reintegration programs are being expanded because they serve a practical purpose: reducing the likelihood that released inmates will return.
“Security without rehabilitation creates a revolving door,” she warned. “Rehabilitation without discipline creates instability. A modern correctional service must combine both.”
