In 1993, Dr. Louis Galea, the Minister of Home Affairs of the island nation of Malta, asked Prison Fellowship Malta and Prison Fellowship International for recommendations on a new approach to corrections, one that would do more than simply update its British colonial prison regime. After discussions, the government requested that PFI form an international team to assess the prison and criminal justice conditions and make a series of recommendations. These recommendations became the framework for the government’s plan to reform its correctional system. PFI then became actively involved in the implementation of that plan.

The government arranged for two of the PFI team to relocate to Malta and assume responsibilities in the reform efforts. James Rowland, recently retired director of the California Department of Corrections, worked from 1993-1997 in the Corradino Prison, offering management training and assistance. Daniel Van Ness, who had until recently directed the justice reform work of Prison Fellowship USA, worked from 1994-96 at the Centre for Criminology at the University of Malta, and consulted regularly with Ministry staff on revision of the prison regulations and other legal issues. In addition, the Home Affairs Ministry employed several PF Malta members; the government appointed others to key advisory positions. PFI staff visited the island on a regular basis during the period of the project.

The work centred on a document drafted by PFI, and modified and adopted by the Cabinet as a White Paper on the prison reforms. The paper focused on restorative justice as a foundation for the reforms, and identified a number of recommendations for sustained governmental attention. Some of these recommendations addressed serious deficiencies in the “infrastructure” of the prison system. For example:

• At the outset of the reform effort, only a third of the employees working in the prison were correctional staff. The rest were police and military officers assigned to prison duty on a rotating, short-term basis. 
• There was virtually no management structure at the outset of the reforms. The last Prison Director had left in 1989 and was followed by a succession of Acting Directors without training in corrections and without an effective middle management support.
• The prison regulations in use had been written more than 60 years earlier by the British colonial government, and were frequently ignored.
• The prison facility was fundamentally sound, but needed substantial renovations to allow prisoner classification, programming and effective administration.

By the end of the project, concerted efforts by the government to improve conditions of employment had enabled it to recruit a full complement of correctional staff, and initial and ongoing staff training programs were in place. A Prison Director had been named and a middle management structure established and filled. New prison regulations, reflecting international guidelines on prisons, had been adopted and implemented. Finally, as substantial capital improvement program was begun which would allow increased security for high-risk offenders, specialized programming for young offenders and those with substance abuse problems, and a significant improvement in the conditions of women prisoners.

Other recommendations had to do with the treatment of prisoners and victims. When the project began, prisoner programming was virtually non-existent. With PF Malta’s assistance, community members and organizations began offering a wide range of educational, vocational and religious programs for prisoners. The government hired correctional social workers to provide probation supervision and pre-release assistance, and to launch victim a offender mediation programme. When the reform efforts began, little attention was given to the needs of crime victims. At its conclusion, the government had established a victim support task force to survey the needs of victims, to identify resources available to meet those needs, and to organize community and government support.