presented by Avraham Hoffmann at the ICPA 9^th annual conference, October 21-26, 2007, Bangkok, Thailand.

Judge (Emeritus) Aharon Barak, Israel’s Supreme Court’s former president proclaimed that “an enlightened society is assessed according to the way it treats prisoners.” Hence the turning point in the Israeli society’s attitude toward prisoners is also a turning point in Israeli society’s attitude toward itself.

This belief was a fundamental plinth of the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority Law (1983) that states that the Authority must promote released prisoners’ absorption and rehabilitation within the community, including employment, vocational training, securing income, housing and medical services. When I accepted the responsibility to found the Authority, I set two principles:

1. Only few will reach the mountain’s summit. However, rehabilitation is the decision to rehabilitate, which is not self evident. Therefore, we define a rehabilitated person as one that has chosen to follow the path toward rehabilitation. However the success of the rehabilitation is measured by the regular objective data.
2. There is no rehabilitation without employment.

Therefore, all of the Authority’s rehabilitation programs include employment (vocational training and work) as a fundamental and integral part.

The innovation of the Israeli Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority’s method lies in two complementary aspects of the employment rehabilitation process:

1. Work placement is not just a target in itself. The follow up and support during the placement are aimed at ensuring perseverance.
2. Employment is not only a way to secure subsistence. Employment helps released prisoners to integrate society. Therefore, a social therapy must accompany the vocational training and work placement programs.

For many released prisoners that lived outside society and that have never worked before, it is not self-evident or natural to perceive work as a value or as a way of life. Therefore we should introduce them to the world of work and help them internalise the working values. For them we founded a group where they can learn and prepare for the work world.

The Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority’s employment programs are composed of three major elements:

1. Community supervision: according to the 2001 Conditional Release Law, an evaluation of the released prisoner will determine his ability to integrate a regular work with a therapy program as well as the required degree of supervision by the Authority.
2. Employment support and follow up. Employment counsellors accompany and support each released prisoner, locate “friendly employers” and follow up released prisoners that they employ.
3. “Friendly employers” work places are the community’s leading force in helping released prisoners rehabilitate and integrate society. They are aware of their employees past and are willing to cooperate with the employment counsellor and report when a problem occurs, in order to help prevent a relapse.

Surveys and researches about the Authority’s employment programs studied the causes for perseverance at work and successful rehabilitation of released prisoners. In his study, Bialler (2005)[1] surveyed 135 male released prisoners from the Jerusalem region. He shows that their employment experience, work at “friendly employers” work places and their community supervision, have a direct impact on their perseverance at work.

Friendly Employer

For the released inmate Employment is not only a source of income, but also a bridge to society. The contact with the employer is a meeting point between the released prisoner and the society. Therefore we must ensure that this employment experience will end successfully.

One of the reasons for people being dragged into crime is leaving outside society. Therefore, society (re)entry is the first stage in rehabilitation. The rehabilitation of a released prisoner that keeps out of society is most likely not to last. By entering the normative society, as opposed to his pre-incarceration friends, we promote his full and successful rehabilitation.

The friendly employer is one of the society’s representatives that the released prisoner meets. Not from the professional establishment, but a true member of society and the work world.

Usually a released prisoner wishes to hide his past. Why would he be willing to work for an employer who knows his past?

Experience shows that a released prisoner that needs to keep his secret, invests a lot of energy in doing so and lives constantly fearing his secret will be disclosed. Hence he has no energy left for his rehabilitation work.

A friendly employer despite being aware of the released prisoner’s criminal past, he is willing to accept him. He agrees to be in contact with the PRA’s employment counsellor and dedicate the released prisoner special attention. His friendly welcome helps bonding the released prisoner with society.

And in fact, the research shows that released prisoners that work for a “friendly employer” show a significantly higher degree of perseverance at work.

41 of the participants who were working with “friendly employers” show almost 84% of perseverance at work as opposed to those who did not work for “friendly employers“showed only 56% of perseverance.

Supervision

One of the basic assumptions is that only a part of the day is spent at work, therefore the released prisoner must spend the rest of the day to strengthen his rehabilitation.

Does the social worker’s duty end with the released prisoner’s placement at a work place?

 We believe the social worker responsibility goes beyond placement, and should proceed in therapy and accompaniment to ensure the released prisoner’s success at work. Employment, as much as it creates a solution for some of the released prisoner’s difficulties, it creates new ones. Our society demands a formal relationship between the employer and his employees, concerning the work. However the released prisoner is a very sensitive – and very violent (!) – person and easily feels insulted. A released prisoner could leave a work place because of justified remarks and criticism. That’s where the social worker helps the released prisoner, through individual and group therapies. Together they deal with problems that rose at work, such as ways to handle remarks and if needed the social worker will intervene with the employer.

Sometimes the reality is surprising as you can learn from one of our released prisoner’s story:

A released prisoner came back from work very angry. He said he would not return to work at the bookbindery. His elderly employer could not remember his new employee’s name and therefore when he needed him he would call him “thief come to me”. Obviously, the released prisoner was insulted. With the employment counsellor they found a solution. They taped the name of the new employee on each of the bookbindery’s wall.

This is an example of the social worker’s importance, who could resolve a problem in a creative way.

Supervision is usually perceived as tough and rigid. However by using the social therapy we transform supervision into cultivation.

Supervision is needed to ensure that the released prisoner is persevering at work, that he receives a continued social therapy and leaves in a permanent address; if he was a drug abuser that he takes regular drug tests and participate in an NA group; and if he is a family man that he participates in a family therapy (38% of re-incarcerations are due to family conflicts).

The treatment must be holistic and comprehensive to ensure a full and successful rehabilitation.

And in fact, researches[2] show that released prisoners that are under community supervision and accompaniment of a social worker show significantly higher degree of perseverance at work. And for released prisoners that also work for “friendly employers” perseverance at work increases up to 86% as oppose to only 42% for those who work at regular work places and with no supervision.

Does the Length of the last incarceration influence rehabilitation?

The reasons for a long term incarceration are two (2): A serious offence or repetitive incarcerations. These released prisoners are weary and therefore more compliant, they have gained work experience during their incarceration and, their relationships with criminals outside prison have decreased due to the long term incarceration.

How does halfway residential hostel promote rehabilitation and employment?

The residential hostels are intended for the hardest released prisoners. They offer an intensive and more “aggressive” therapy for people that cannot internalise new values the regular way, that deal with the reasons that brought him to drugs abuse. Two (2) important and mandatory rules are being detoxicated and that a new resident must work or attend vocational training within 3 days from his arrival – either on his own or with the employment counsellor’s assistance.

And in fact, released prisoners that stayed in the halfway hostel showed higher degree of perseverance at work.

Employment experience increase perseverance at work!

However no correlation was found between general educational level and vocational training and, the released prisoner’s perseverance at work.

Bialler’s research shows higher success rates for graduates of half-way residential hostels, for released prisoners’ who’s last incarceration sentence was long and, for those that join the program voluntarily.

Just before I conclude, I would like to tell you an inspiring success story:

One of the PRA employment program participants was released after 15 years in prison. During the program he had been employed by a “friendly” constructor to build the new Central Bus station in Tel Aviv and was proud to say:

“Here, on the building scaffolding, I found Paradise.

I always thought only dead men could get there, but when, for the first time in my life, I felt that people cared for me and were relating to me as a man and not a criminal,

I understood that Paradise can be not-only in heaven, but right here on earth.”

Bialler’s research concludes that the integration of these elements and goals offers released prisoners a better chance to succeed in the employment field, and as a consequence in the rehabilitation process and in (re)entering and (re)integrating society.

To conclude I would like to refer to King David who defined in his Psalms, chapter 128 the goals of the rehabilitation of released prisoner:

1. “If you eat the toil of your hands, you are praiseworthy, and it is good for you.” In other words: You, who have been used to eat from others hard work will learn to enjoy working and will benefit from the fruits of your own work.
2. But rehabilitation without a family therapy and an appropriate rehabilitation of the released prisoner relationship with his spouse and with his children – only half work is done. Therefore: “Your wife will be as a fruitful vine in the innermost parts of your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table.”
3. You must learn to deal with the work and work place, and then says King David you will be blessed by heaven: “May the Lord bless you from Zion, and see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. And may you see children [born] to your children, [and see] peace upon Israel“

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[1] Gedeon Bialler, Study of the Factors that Influence Released Prisoners’ Employment Perseverance, MA, Polytechnic University, September 2006.

[2] Researches of the PRA in cooperation of researchers form the Hebrew University (Jerusalem): Diamant –Kranot (2004), Amir, Sagiv, and Horowitz (2005), Bialler and Bar-Sinai (2003), Timor and Shoham (2005), Amir and Sagiv (1998).