As part of this assistance a two-day national conference on community service started in Windhoek yesterday.

Opening the conference, Minister of Safety and Security Nickey Iyambo said the Finnish assistance shows that the Scandinavian country wants to see Namibia "pursuing best practices in fighting crime and in this case, through alternatives to imprisonment".

Dr Iyambo said the challenge is on his ministry to finalise the Community Service Orders Bill, and to get Namibian society to accept community service as a real penal sanction like any other punishment.

"We intend to cover all the courts in all pilot regions, and have permanent people working in the projects.

We hope within the time frame of three years, we will cover all the courts in the pilot regions and also to prepare the critical mass of personnel to roll out the programme in phases to cover the whole country," he said.

Community service, he said, carefully considers and selects first offenders who have committed petty offences to perform unpaid work for the benefit to the community.

"The offender can, for example, be ordered to sweep the street or marketplace, cut grass in public parks, help to build classrooms or clinics, clean public toilets or hospital floors or to do special work for disadvantaged members of community," he said.

He said many inmates in the country's jails are first offenders who have committed less serious crimes.

"In our prison institutions, offenders serving short sentences make up 31,4 per cent of the total prison population, mostly convicted of offences such as trespassing, malicious damage to property, traffic offences, alcoholism, shoplifting, common assault and other petty offences."

He said these are offences that could be dealt with through the community service scheme to avoid the culprits mixing with hardcore criminals and to cut the high cost of imprisonment.

Community service would also correct the wrong perception that Namibia has a very high incarceration rate, the minister said.

He said a pilot project in the Caprivi, Kavango, Oshana and Kunene regions last year worked very well, and provided good experience for a roll-out to other regions.

The conference ends today.

Nampa

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