Adopt new framework on social integration
Julius Peter Ochen
What you need to know:
The increased urban crime rates with all its dimensions must invoke our collective wisdom to guarantee a safe and a secure society.
The sustainable social integration must follow a chronological process which starts as soon as offenders are admitted in prison.
The increased urban crime rates with all its dimensions must invoke our collective wisdom to guarantee a safe and a secure society.
The Prison Act 2006, specifically Chapter 8, Section 90 provides for physical rehabilitation and repatriation of offenders but pliably fall short of social integration of the ex-inmates.
International standards and norms reaffirm that rehabilitation of offenders and their successful reintegration into the community are among the basic objectives of the criminal justice process. In so doing, they emphasise the importance of interventions to support the reintegration of offenders as a means to prevent further crime and protect society.
A key feature of successful crime prevention strategies is the attention to the social reintegration of ex-prisoners into the community and the development of interventions designed to reduce the levels of recidivism.
A comprehensive strategy must evidently take into account the fact that public safety is affected by the large number of crimes committed by individuals who have already faced criminal sanctions but have not yet desisted from crime. Without effective interventions, relapse remains likely. Many offenders, even after a term of imprisonment, fail to reintegrate into the community as law abiding citizens. This is why effective social integration or reintegration programmes are no longer a luxury for Uganda.
Comprehensive crime prevention programmes must include effective measures to prevent recidivism and to stop the cycle of failed adaptation by repeat offenders. Offender reintegration programmes that target the dynamic risk factors associated with recidivism and specific initiatives focus on specific challenges facing offenders can go a long way in addressing issues of relapse to crime; a common urban criminal challenge of the modern time. Of particular concern are high-risk offenders with lengthy records of criminality.
The successes registered by Uganda Prison Service over the years in rehabilitation of inmates through skills provision, spiritual slant and other forms of psychological discourse throughout the country cannot be under-scaled. And their tenet of aiding offenders to overcome the stigma of a criminal conviction, the detrimental effects of incarceration and the numerous obstacles they face in trying to start life again is appreciable, but how they left out social integration is a puzzling missed link-chain.
Policy frameworks in resettling offenders and reintegrating them into their local communities with the help of social workers would go a long way in addressing crimes. The recent interview published by Prison Fellowship International revealed a scary depiction of relapsing offenders due to a lack of prepared community to accept them. They try to resettle themselves elsewhere; life fails and they revert to crimes.
The sustainable social integration must follow a chronological process which starts as soon as offenders are admitted in prison. Offenders are prepared to reach internal reconciliation. This is intended to disarm them from their usual tendency of rationalising their being in prison “…..they said I stole…” Once an offender has accepted the responsibility of the offence, then externalisation can then happen where social workers arrange to visit the local community members (the victims’ relatives, offenders’ neighbours and all the involved actors) to start the reconciliation process. Everyone deserves support, to address social relations and criminal relapses.
The Acholi traditional justice system of mato oput concept; a reconciliatory social approach that would make the community more alacritous to accept the offenders despite what went wrong, should be looked at with curiosity, with intent of adopting it into standard policy procedure for release of ex-mates in addition to transport, clothing and start-up capital being provided at the moment.
@OchenJP
