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Rehabilitation of Prisoners People, who enter prison, are exclusive from the social life. Once a person has happened to be in prison, he or she is alone, cuts off from everything and has to survive. It is known that even short-term sentences may greatly changed ones life. From the report of the Cabinet Offices Social Exclusion Unit, a third of all offenders lose their home while in prison, two thirds lose their job, over a fifth face increased financial problems and over two-thirds lost contact with their family. (Social Exclusion Unit, 2002) In the prison context, rehabilitation means to prepare prisoners to come back to society, but as a member of it.
There is a common opinion that a lot of prisoners have never been rehabilitated in society. The scepticism is based on three reasons. The first one is that, even good preparation to survive as law-abiding citizens cannot change the mind of prisoners. The other one is the hostile environment of the prison. Thats why there is no cooperation between staff and prisoners necessary for effective teaching, supervising, or counselling. And the final reason is that a lot of different rehabilitation programs have not worked in the past for everybody only for few of them.
According to the Prison Rules set by the Government the purpose of the training and treatment of convicted prisoners shall be to encourage and assist them to lead a good and useful life. (The Prison Rules, 1999) But the opinions of political forces in the Government as to the rehabilitation programs differ. Liberals consider that such programs need more money. At the same time conservatives demand hard time for offenders and to increase prison terms and prison time. Politicians think that long terms keep criminals away from society. But finally a lot of prisoners will return to society; and, for sure, they will not be able to restore their lives as citizens, workers, and family members after a long-term imprisonment.
According to statistics, after release from prison about 19 percent are returned to it. A lot of them cannot find job in a year after release. From the other side, those, who had vocational training or work experience, have more chances to be employed. It is evident that incarceration does not prevent recidivism even increases its rate. (Chih Lin, 200) It is clear, that prisons are not institutions like schools or factories for preparation. May be, a lot of school, work, counselling, and family programs in prisons did not work because the attitude towards prisoners was not changed. In Germany, for example, rehabilitation strategy includes principles of re-socialization (the prisoner should not have criminal offences); normalisation (a life of the prisoner should resemble general living conditions); damage reduction (correctional authorities should not act roughly and incorrectly).
May be, if these principles are common in prisons rehabilitation will actually works. In 1997, Texas Department of Criminal Justice and Prison Fellowship launched IFI (the Inner Change Freedom Initiative). It was a religion-based rehabilitation program which was based on improving education, work, and life skills. The program included religious instruction that were implemented by mentors. Those mentors worked one-on-one with prisoners. According to the IFI data, all participants of the program were paroled and the rates of recidivism reduced considerably.
A few of IFI program graduates were arrested or incarcerated in future. The most important fact is that IFI program graduates had spiritual transformation, they changed their thoughts. They said that they were not who they used to be. Former prisoners had new rules to live by and spiritual growth. During their imprisonment they lived according to God's rules and not the prison code. " The program helped them to have a positive outlook on life and made them ready to come back to society. The executive director of the Centre for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute, Henry Olsen, was sure that, "The positive findings should inform future public-policy discussions about how best to help the literally hundreds of thousands of prisoners now returning each year to society. " May be, such programs would be the best way out for both prisoners and society.
Bibliography: Ann, Chih Lin. Reform in the Making: The Implementation of Social Policy in Prison. Princeton, NJ. Publication, pp. 3 - 12, 2000. Faith-Based Rehabilitation Program Shows Promise. University Communications, June 18, 2003 web Rehabilitation of Prisoners.
First Report of Session 200405. House of Commons, vol. I, December 21, 2004. Social Exclusion Unit. Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, July, 2002.
The Prison Rules 1999 (S. I. (1999) No. 728), consolidated September 2002, rule 3.
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