By CANDIA DAMES, Guardian News Editor

The government spends $250,000 a year to provide free cigarettes for inmates because the law mandates it, Superintendent of Her Majesty's Prison Dr. Elliston Rahming said during a House of Assembly crime committee hearing yesterday.

Rahming said under the law the prison must provide each inmate with 20 cigarettes per week.

His revelation appeared to have stunned members of the committee who were questioning him on the operations of the prison and its role in the fight against crime.

"If we could take that same money and put it toward a resettlement allowance [for ex-convicts], might that not be a better use of those funds and those inmates who smoke can get their cigarettes from the commissary," the prison superintendent said.

He told the committee that inmates who are released often have no help reintegrating into society.

Rahming recalled meeting at the prison gate one day a newly released ex-convict who was carrying a garbage bag that contained all of his belongings. He had no money, no one to come collect him and no place to go.

Rahming said that in the Turks and Caicos Islands every inmate gets a dollar a day from the state. He told The Nassau Guardian that he was not suggesting that The Bahamas government adopt the same policy, but he said more needs to be done to help released inmates get a leg up so they do not re-offend.

Member of Parliament for Pineridge Kwasi Thompson said he found it surprising that the government spends a quarter of a million dollars on cigarettes for inmates every year.

"I think it's something that we need to look at," said Thompson, who sits on the six-member committee examining possible crime solutions. "In my view there are more effective ways of using that kind of money to assist our inmates, so I think it needs to be reviewed."

The committee's chairman, Dr. Bernard Nottage, agreed.

"I think that if there is a program to provide a quarter of a million dollars to contribute something to the mental stability or well being of inmates, I have no problem with that, but that it should be committed to cigarettes when we know that cigarette smoking is dangerous to health...I don't think that is something that we should be promoting by law," said Nottage, who is the leader of Opposition Business in the House of Assembly.

He told The Nassau Guardian authorities definitely need to review the situation.

In prisons around the world, cigarettes are often viewed as an extremely valuable commodity. Dr. Rahming said the original thinking behind providing free cigarettes for inmates at Her Majesty's Prison is that a cigarette is viewed as a pacifier and provides a calming influence on people who have a lot of idle time on their hands.