5 September 2012 - Prisons were moving away from punishment to rehabilitation of detainees, a top official in South Sudan's prison service said today in Juba.

Speaking at a one-day workshop, Abel Makoi Wol, director general of the National Prisons Service of South Sudan, told participants that agriculture should be a part of prisoner reform.

"Human beings can only be respected when they work," Mr. Wol said. "We have enough...land, timber, and water suitable for industries.

"If the country's over 6,000 prisoners were working in farming or industry, prisons would soon become self-sufficient and the number of felonies would drop, the director general added.

UNMISS Corrections Officer Jeduah Mahama said detainees should be also equipped with life skills like carpentry, tailoring, blacksmithing, dressmaking, and masonry to reduce idleness, become self-sufficient, and take on government contracts once they left prison.

"The prison industry holds a great potential for tapping the large pool of prison labor to assist in national development," the corrections officer said.

Attended by prison directors, the workshop aimed to identify areas needing attention in the prisons service and suggest remedies. These included lack of segregation in detention cells, forced labor, training, arbitrary arrests, and prolonged detention periods for inmates.

UNMISS Corrections Advisory Chief Richard Kuuire said prisons should focus on improving agriculture and establishing a broad-based advocacy programme if prison living conditions were to be improved.

An advisor in the Interior Ministry, Agacio Akol Tong, said military culture was deeply rooted in people's minds because of the war, encouraging crime. The reform movement aimed to bring about psychological healing by removing embedded traumatic stress.