THE proposal to transfer Guam inmates to Saipan’s prison facility requires “further analysis,” Department of Public Safety Commissioner Clement Bermudes said.
“A deeper dive into this potential program is necessary to reassure the community, so that the community is confident, and that the program is going to work,” he added. “Because there is always an impact on the community, [we want it to be] something that is manageable and not something that will raise flags.”
He said his “real concerns will be…recidivists and repeat offenders. Does that mean they get repatriated to Guam upon release or are they just released freely back into the community? I believe in rehabilitation, but I truly believe a deeper dive into this potential program is necessary to reassure the community. We really need to study what this potential program is about,” Bermudes said.
Earlier this month, Guam and CNMI officials stated that the plan to transfer Guam inmates to Saipan’s prison facility was in its “early stages” and no agreement had been finalized yet.
E-citation
Bermudes also noted that the CNMI judiciary will be transitioning from a paper-based citation system to an electronic citation system.
E-citation aims to speed up the process and reduce the number of illegible tickets. Citations can be sent immediately from a police car to the courthouse.
“Everything will be paperless. What that requires of us is to have our police vehicles mounted with hardware and [a] scanner to scan driver’s licenses. The system is supposed to be able to transmit electronically to the court instead of manually,” Bermudes said.
However, he said, for “the hardware, the courts have their own vendors, we [DPS] have our own vendors — a different system.”
He said, “In order for an Android and an Apple to ‘talk’ we need a middle one, and it’s not an Android, and not an Apple, and that requires money…. We have to pay for a system to make the two systems communicate.”
Fortunately, DPS has identified available funding for it, he added.
“So that’s in the spring … that’s our target, and we’re really excited about it. That is something in the works. It requires hardware and software to ensure the electronic transfer of tickets to the courts,” Bermudes said.
The House of Representatives recently approved the CNMI judiciary’s proposed rules for traffic to transition from paper-based citations to electronic ones. The proposed rules will also formalize the inclusion of other non-traffic payable violations, such as citations for violations of the Litter Control Act.
