16.2.2007
Abu Dhabi on Mission rehabilitation of Prison inmates
HCT and MOI join hands to provide education, training and employment
Under the directives and creative vision of His Highness Lt.Gen.Sheikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan the Minister of Interior, a strategic decision was taken to give a new orientation to rehabilitating the inmates of the corrective and prison department of the General Headquarters of Abu Dhabi Police.
Further to this decision, the Ministry of Interior and the Higher College of technology got in to an agreement to provide education and training to the inmates, so that they could be brought in to the main stream and creatively accommodated to provide career and new lease of life.
Brigadier Yousef Abdul Kareem Al Ahmed, director of the correctional and prison establishment was quite vocal about the scheme that is being implemented.
Explaining about the program, he said that the national inmates of the center will be provided with the opportunity for education and training according to their present skills which is being tested by the training experts from HCT to categorize and segment them to different batches and courses.
The specialty of the program is that it assures rehabilitation through providing suitable jobs on their release. the program will act an impetus to positive character building, creative utilization of their duration of detention, change their personality structure and make them better citizens said Ms Thomson, the course coordinator from HCT.
The induction to the course will depend on their merit, which will be tested through an entrance test. This test will help understand the present caliber of the inmates and to find the level to which they would be admitted for different courses.
The successful candidates will be given certificates by the higher college of technology and incase any inmate prior to his completion of the course get released on special decrees, will be eligible to join the HCT and complete the course with all other benefits.
A total of 60 candidates will be selected for each course which will be conducted inside the correctional center by the training coordinators from HCT. The classes will be for five hours and five days a week. Inmates will be given special uniforms while attending the classes.
The coordinators of the course are Major Ali Al Khayal of the correctional center and Mrs. Thomson, Mr.Hesham, MS Sara from the higher college of technology.
Ms. Thomson holds a Masters degree in correctional education and is in the field of rehabilitation training for the past fifteen years. She has worked with over sixteen prisons world wide and wrote a thesis on pre release transitio
