CORRECTIONAL services from across the East African Community need to ensure that inmates can live a successful life once released from prison.

This calls for providing inmates with skills that can help them  once outside prison.

These were some of the remarks made at the opening of a five-day workshop aimed at harmonising the study curricula for inmates at Rwanda Peace Academy in Musanze.

The workshop brought together officers working in correctional  services from all EAC partner  states. Participants said inmates deserve rights despite their offenses.

Josephta Mukobe, the Principal Secretary at the Ministry of Interiors and Coordination of managing prisons in Kenya, said prisons need to  be effectively managed because they host offenders of different types, including terrorists, murderers and   rapists.

She said East African correctional services officers need to harmonise the management of such prisoners while helping them acquire skills that will help them in their transition  to life outside.

 "We need to work together and share experiences. For example, we need to know why the crime rate in Rwanda is low compared to other regional countries,” she said.

She also said prisoners need to be helped in the rehabilitation process.

"Maj. Gen. Paul Rwarakabije, the Commissioner General for Rwanda Correctional Service, said correctional services have moved from punitive methods of imprisonment to modern correctional rehabilitation programmes.

He urged participants to use the workshop as an opportunity to discuss ways to harmonise the curricula in order to help inmates gain practical skills and hands on skills which will help them transform their social economic status after serving their sentences.

Rwarakabije said Rwandan correctional services had done a lot in helping inmates acquire skills in carpentry, mechanics, construction and modern agriculture among others which he said was helpful to former convicts and society in general.

"Working with regional countries is good. We need to see where each country has made progress and come up with a good curriculum,” Rwarakabije said.

Gerard Sindayigaya, an officer from correctional services in Burundi, said he was optimistic the training would tip them on how best to make the inmates in Burundi productive.