INL to resume training programme for Punjab prison officers

LAHORE: The US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) has expressed its willingness to resume its training programme for the Punjab Prison Service officers in the United States.

In this regard, an INL delegation met Punjab IG Prisons Mian Farooq Nazir on Tuesday. The team was led by Lori J Antolinez, director of the INL, Pakistan, and Ms Shannon Brink, senior official of the INL programme.

They agreed on training prison service officers in America, improving technology and providing training at the Punjab Prisons Staff Training College, Sahiwal, technological upgradation in prisons and strengthening of prison security.

According to documents, the INL delegation appreciated the facilities provided to prisoners in Punjab jails like the establishment of PCOs for telephone calls, recruitment of psychologists for mental health and suicide risk assessment, setting up of diagnostic and detoxification centres for drug addict prisoners, provision of food to prisoners according to hygiene principles, initiation of prison trial and prisoner information management system, internet libraries and utility stores in the prisons.

In a briefing given to the US team, it was said that training for Punjab prison services officers, including jail superintendents and deputy superintendents, began at a centre in the American state of Colorado in August 2015. Eighty-seven Punjab prison officers received training from August 30, 2015 to June 4, 2022.