Maldives Correctional Service has today initiated an audit of prisons and detention centres to check for the compliance to the “Prisons and Parole Act”.
The compliance audit will be conducted by the Ethics and Professional Standard Section of MCS.
The purpose of the audit as per the Director of Ethics and Professional Standard Superintendent of Prisons Mohamed Asif; is to confirm that the prisons and detention centres operating under the umbrella of MCS runs absolutely true to the Prison and Parole Act and the policies and procedures drafted under the Act. He also said that any policy in effect that may contradict other policies will be filtered out during the audit and brought to the attention of the directors of the prisons and will also be shared with the Commissioner of Prisons.
Superintendent of Prisons Mohamed Asif further stated that the main purpose of such audits is to inspect and strengthen the operation of prisons as well as to find out the challenges to running a prison in order to tackle those challenges.
The audit is expected to conclude within two months and the points which are noted for improvement will be shared with the directors of the prisons. The prisons will be again reviewed to check if the suggested improvements were made, said Superintendent of Prisons Mohamed Asif. He said that Ethics and Professional Standards Section in association with the Legal Section will also conduct programmes to educate officers and staff on the Prison and Parole Act and the policies drafted under the said Act.
The first prison to be audited was the Asseyri Prison at K. Himmafushi.
Ethics and Professional Standards is the section that educate officers and staff and monitor their compliance of the code of conduct, the Prison and Parole Act and the policies and procedures drafted under the Act and professional work ethics. The Section is also active in advising the Commissioner of Prisons on ways to develop and improve the Service.
