Education as a tool of rehabilitation and integration

Prison Welfare Day - 'Prisoners are human beings':

by Indeewara Thilakarathne

As kith and kin of the inmates assemble in a long queue at the entrance to the Welikada prison, waiting for their turn to visit the inmates, Sri Lanka marked yet another Prison Welfare Day, leaving behind manifold issues to be solved.

A gamut of officials from rough handling police officers to the charming and ever smiling welfare officers constitute the live-wire that runs the system of prisons in Sri Lanka which is more or less modeled on the British Prison system.

However, the prisons have been undergoing a dramatic transformation from being Centres of punishing and condemning convicts to Centres of reforming and rehabilitating convicts with aim of integrating them into the mainstream society as fully-fledged citizens.

'Prisons in Sri Lanka are 400 per cent over crowded. However, out of this 50.8 per cent are remandees. The main reason for this unprecedented increase in intake is the lack of education. This is a fact which has been proved beyond doubt.

Therefore, six month's ago, we opened an Open School in Palansena, said Commissioner General of Prisons, Major General Vajira Wijeyagoonawardena due to the ever increasing number of inmates, which he attributed to the shortcomings of the society.According to the Commissioner General, vocational training courses which had been conducted over the years are being upgraded in keeping with the changes in the labour market.

As some of the courses would no longer provide employment, they have been changed over to more employment-oriented courses such as training in both software and hardware, ensuing that the inmate when released will be able to earn a decent living.

Over 5,270 inmates who have done their O/Ls, are being provided with training in Computer Hardware and Software which will improve employability as well as their power of concentration. This rehabilitation aspect has also been taken into consideration when designing courses for inmates.

Another ambitious project to be commenced is a degree programme in prisons for those inmates with A/L qualifications.

Negotiations, in this regard, have been conducted with the Open University to open a branch in prison and commence courses in prisons, leading to diverse degrees with the intension of integrating inmates into the mainstream society as fully fledged citizens, substantially contributing to the economy. This has been identified as an important area in rehabilitation and social integration.

Long queues and smuggling of unauthorised items into the prison Citing reasons for long queues and rather rough handling of kith and kin of the inmates by the police officers in charge, the Commissioner General revealed that this was simply due to the fact that relatives of the inmates attempt to smuggle unauthorised items into the prison.

From the unfolded paper to cooked food items have been used for this purpose. There are some instances where narcotics has been found inserted into cooked beans and thousand rupee notes have been carefully studded in unfolded newspapers. Some of the items used for smuggling drug and money are tubes of tooth paste (remove the content and insert drug), cooked chickens (insert money into them) and newspapers used to wrap food parcels.

One of the amazing features of the money smuggled in wrapping papers is that the notes were fitted into the paper as if they were part of the papers.

Since there are no scanners and X-ray machines, each and every item, besides body checking, everything else has to be manually checked. Parcels containing food items, tooth paste and wrapping papers, have to be dismantled and checked on item basis.

This meticulous process is being further complicated when relatives visit without prior appointments and the authorities have to call the particular inmate who is often engaged in diverse rounds and cannot be easily found.

Re-convicted prisoners

According to statistics, each year, fourteen per cent of prisoners who were released, have been re-convicted accounting for thirty per cent of the present prison population.

The principle reason attributed to this is that when the breadwinner is imprisoned, the family loses its sole income, often compelling the wife to take over the business. This is common among drug dealers and moonshine producers.

Commissioner General Wijeyagoonawardena has formulated a programme whereby the District Secretaries are being informed of families of the convicts in order to ensure that those families receive due social benefit.

This pathetic situation is that as a result of the social stigma, children of the convicts have to stop schooling and often wives either fly for Middle East in search of employment or partners. Eventually they also become prisoners.

Therefore, we commenced this islandwide programme to look after families of the convicts, said Commissioner General Wijeyagoonawardena this programme would ensure that family members of convicts are not harassed or suffer owing to the social stigma.

Social stigma and perception

Commissioner General of Prisons, Wijeyagoonawardena urged the public to accept released inmates as fully fledged citizens and families of convicts should not be subject to harassment.

Stigmatisation and branding the released prisoners and the general perception of them has to be changed as most of the prisoners are victims of circumstances. The present social attitude will lead to a serious social issue with many repercussions.

Currently the Government spends a sum of Rs. 100,000 billion on prisoners. The number of intakes has been increased to 250 persons per day and 90 per cent of the inmates are those who have been convicted on minor offences for shorter terms, imprisonments (often 2 years) while only 10 per cent are charged for criminal offences. It is basically impossible for the prison to reform these persons within a period of two years.

He is of the view that present Government regulation with regard to employing prisoner should be changed and private sector should also absorb reformed convicts allowing them to enjoy the fruits of life while making a substantial contribution to the economy.

Since the opening up of several new prisons, currently prisons are short staffed in order to bring the prisoner-officer ratio to an officer per six inmates. Prisons need four thousands officers in all categories. It is the responsibility of the nation to improve the treatment meted out to all prisoners alike.

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