With 86 people currently behind bars for the crime of forest arson, the general directorate for prison services (DGRSP) has admitted that a rehabilitation programme devised for these people seven years ago has still not been implemented.
The programme has been “reformulated”, prison staff have even received training to embark on the programme, but the most important feature – the work itself – has not begun, and there is no indication when it will.
Meantime, the number of convicted and detained people – 65 inmates – is the highest since 2013 – the year in which records began and in which only 21 prisoners were serving sentences for the crime of forest fire.
Compared to last year’s figures, updated on December 31, 2024, there are now 15 more people behind bars.
In addition to those detained in prisons, there are 13 people under electronic surveillance – 11 of them on suspended prison sentences and two on parole.
The Rehabilitation Programme for Arsonists began to be designed in 2016, with the DGRSP putting forward a proposal to adapt the ‘Firesetting Intervention, Programme For Prisoners’ programme from the University of Kent in the United Kingdom to the Portuguese context, with the aim of preventing reoffending.
According to information released today by the DGRSP, the contents of this programme were revised in 2019 and during 2021 and 2022, “training activities were carried out for those implementing the programme, with 38 senior technicians and social reintegration officers receiving training”.
The DGRSP reports that tests were carried out on the programme, which revealed that it was “inappropriate for the socio-criminal and psychological/psychiatric characteristics of individuals sentenced to imprisonment for the crime of forest arson”. For this reason, the same source added, “the readjustment of the programme for application in the context of community sentences and measures is being considered”.
All this is ‘very well’, but police are arresting arsonists every week, a number of them already found to be ‘repeat offenders’: a rehabilitation programme, even one that has ‘inappropriate features’ may be better than no rehabilitation at all.
Source: Lusa
