THE EDITOR, Sir:

THE PROBLEM of criminal deportees, mostly from the United States, continues to trouble Jamaica's safety and security, as you reported earlier this month. Having a representative of the Ministry of National Security brief members of the United States (U.S.) House Foreign Affairs Committee was an important step.

Let me urge the new government to pursue a remedy that has not to my knowledge been mentioned: having those in U.S. prisons serve the last several years of their U.S. sentences in Jamaica.

Most citizen-convicts in the U.S. are released on parole before their terms are completed. They must report regularly to monitors, and are subject to reincarceration if they drift back toward criminal lives.

Having Jamaican convicts complete the last few years of their sentences in a Jamaican setting - first in prison, then on parole - would give the island's police and corrections officers a much-needed form of control, and an opportunity for real 'correction'.

U.S. prisons are expensive, often US$20,000 to $30,000 per convict annually. The U.S. could afford to help Jamaica build a new prison and staff an improved parole system. The difference in costs should be enough for a new system that costs Jamaican nothing, yet saves money for U.S. taxpayers.

To be sure, parole is no panacea. Even in the best U.S. systems, as many as a third of those released commit fresh offenses and are jailed again. But if two-thirds of the deportees Jamaica is forced to absorb could be helped through parole to law-abiding lives, that would be a huge improvement over the present situation.

I urge the new government to pursue such an arrangement with the U.S., and also with Canada and Great Britain. It seems to me a classic 'win-win' idea.

I am, etc.,

DON NOEL

Hartford, CT