The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Parole and Probation Administration (PPA) has vowed to enhance its mandate of providing rehabilitation for first-time criminal offenders through community-based treatment programs in 2023.
PPA Officer-in-Charge and Deputy Administrator Allan B. Alcala expressed confidence that the PPA will be able to implement needed reforms in the treatment and rehabilitation of first-time criminal offenders.
“We are ecstatic about the prospects of the coming year when we are scheduled to implement noteworthy reforms in treatment and rehabilitation, management of caseloads, process improvements, and enhancement of staff competencies,” Alcala said.
“Our ideal of providing our probationers, parolees and pardonees with individualized treatment in the community needs to be pursued and rationalized in keeping with our mandate,” the DOJ official added.
Alcala stressed that while the agency intends to establish a more enlightened and humane correctional system and of providing a less costly alternative to the imprisonment of offenders, “we need to further promote the social reintegration and prevent the commission of offenses by our clients.”
According to him, what PPA needs “are more efficient people who will implement more efficient work strategies that work and not more people doing more of the same.”
“So far, this year we have all been patient and persevering towards this end and it will not be long for us to see next year the fruits of our labor in the service of our public,” he said.
The PPA is one of the DOJ’s agencies tapped by Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla in the expeditious release of qualified persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) to decongest detention facilities managed by the Bureau of Corrections.
Alcala said that “budgetary resources and restraints forced us to look for more creative ways of managing our caseloads in the face of financial and human capital deficits.”
But “recent developments in research and evidence-based studies have
given us insights and models to explore effective community corrections principles,” he added.
“Advances in computer hardware and software applications and technology gradually afforded us more efficient ways of doing things,” he observed.
