In a special rehabilitation effort, seven prisoners were allowed out of jail for a few hours on August 4, 1985.
According to an article published by this newspaper on August 5 that year, the seven prisoners all came from Kadavu and were serving their terms at the Naboro and Korovou prisons.
They were treated to a special church service, feasting and yaqona drinking organised by the youths of Kadavu living in Suva, in association with the Kadavu Provincial Council Prisoners Aftercare Committee.
When The Fiji Times team visited the group, almost 200 Kadavu islanders were at a specially erected vakatunuloa (shed) at Toorak to welcome them.
At one end was a huge spread of food. The Kadavu Choir was singing softly while village elders and youths sat silently drinking yaqona.
The organiser of the meeting, Senator Qoriniasi Bale, said they wanted to try out a new method of treatment for offenders.
“This is not strictly in accordance with any method recognised by law, but it’s one of the Commissioner of Prisons and I have agreed upon and it’s worth trying out,” Mr Bale said.
Senator Bale said what they were trying to do was to release prisoners under an agreement in which, for a temporary period, prisoners were allowed to mix freely in as normal a situation as possible.
“In this case, we have identified the church and the youth movement to present the atmosphere of normality and through these two means, it is hoped that the prisoners themselves can identify their own level of respectability and desire to rehabilitate.”
He said arrangements were very successful and recommended that they should be tried out by others.
Mr Bale, who is also the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, hinted that if these kinds of meetings proved successful, they could well be provided for and written into the current legislation.
“We have tried everything in the past to rehabilitate prisoners. This may and could be the answer,” he said.
Other provinces in Fiji have also formed prisoner rehabilitation committees in an effort to reduce the crime rate.
