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Every Person Has a Right to a New Beginning

presented by Avraham Hoffmann at the ICPA 14th annual conference: Mexico 2012

Summary
Can prisoners rehabilitate? By setting up positive goals and teaching how to ‎achieve them, you can help a person to rehabilitate. We must both prepare ‎prisoners, and society to integrate them.‎

The risk and the hope of releasing a prisoner

The risk and the hope wrestle with each other – while the Release Committee in prison discusses the release of a prisoner.

The pessimists widen and deepen the description of the dangers to society caused by pointing at the failures in his past life and at the harm he has caused to himself and to society, “what is crooked will not be able to be straightened” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).

The optimists, on the other hand, believe that “every person has the right to a new beginning” and, as the mother allows her infant to take his first walking steps, even though he falls. She gives him a hand to help him get up again, as we should when we open the prison gates. They believe that if we give him a new hope and a supportive hand, we can raise him up again when he falls and pave for him a new path in his life.

Aren’t the optimists wrong and are the pessimists right?

Aren’t the pessimists presenting a realistic picture when they describe the dangers? Or, perhaps ignoring the great power of hope jeopardises the ability of human beings who have failed and who have harmed society, from taking the right path to rehabilitation.

Why should we emphasize the positive?

The race for a new life, like the marathon, necessitates releasing hidden inner strengths to be able to finish the race with dignity.

And indeed, our late ancestors said:  “Run to pursue a minor mitzvah – a good deed, a commandment, and flee from a transgression. For a mitzvah brings another mitzvah, and a transgression brings another transgression. For the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah, and the reward of transgression is transgression.” (Ethics of the Fathers 4:2)

Or as we might phrase it in our contemporary language: escaping the offence is conditioned by increasing the positive action of the rehabilitatee. You cannot rehabilitate a person by preaching moral that strengthen the tendency of people to sin and commit crime. On the contrary, by setting up positive goals and teaching toward achieving them, you can help a person to rehabilitate, strengthen him in his inner struggle with himself, with his fellowman and the society he is coming back into.

Our experience in the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority in Israel shows that we must emphasize the opportunity to choose to take the path of life as opposed to emphasizing the prisoner’s past criminal path.

So, we must first build a positive opportunity and take care of the recovery before dealing with the ill aspects of his past life. There is no use in dealing with the prisoner and the released prisoner’s emotional criminal processes before he enters a positive path. He must first know and experience an alternative path.

What are the obstacles facing the released prisoners on his way to rehabilitate?

The prison’s walls present a cut off from life. A released prisoner must get used to the life outside prison after a period he was deprived of freedom:

  1.  He must learn to plan for his future.
  2.  Learn to cope with the abrupt freedom to choose what he will do in the short run and in long term.
  3. Learn to cope with frustrations and pressures and how to solve problems and obstacles.
  4. Learn to seek for help.
  5. Learn to cope with the stigma society has of him and with its reluctance and fear to reintegrate him and trust him.

What are the prisoners’ immediate worries?

A PRA survey showed that the main issues that preoccupy released prisoners are:

  1. Employment and lack of vocational training.
  2. Debts
  3. Housing.
  4. Family relations.

3 crucial elements to successfully rehabilitate released prisoners

  1. Preparing the prisoner before his release.
  2. Helping the released prisoner to integrate society.
  3. Preparing society to integrate released prisoners.

Why do we make a distinction between pre-release rehabilitation programs and post-release programs?

There should be a distinction between the rehabilitation activities done in prison and under the prison services’ control, and the activities of the PRA directed toward the life outside prison. The supposition that doing good work in prison is sufficient in itself to guarantee a successful rehabilitation and reintegration into society has proved to be wrong.

During the period preceding their release the prisoners are anxious and confused in regard to their future, which may increase their willingness to co-operate in participating in a pre-release rehabilitation program and in planning their post-release rehabilitation program. Hence the reason the PRA starts working in prison 90 days before the prisoner’s released, during which an individual rehabilitation plan, called the “Contact program” is set.

A prisoner is referred to the program according to the following criteria:

  1. Willingness and motivation of the prisoner to rehabilitate and participate in the program.
  2. Recommendations by the prison and community social workers.
  3. The prisoner has not been using drugs for at least 6 months, according to the Prison Services.
  4. The prisoner can attend meetings and interviews outside prison.
  5. He has a place to live in.

Subject to be dealt with in rehabilitation plans

The PRA in co-operation with the prison services have raised 21 domains to be addressed in the preparation of an individual’s rehabilitation plan. Among them were: The contact with the local social welfare agency and the National Insurance Institute; The prisoner’s savings from his work in prison; Employment assessment by a PRA employment co-ordinator and the employment bureau; Housing issues; Education; Health and mental health; Drug and alcohol detoxification; Debts; Alimony; Open police file; Divorce process; Etc.

Employment

As we define rehabilitation as integration into the law-abiding society, the absorption into the work world is one of the major assessments to the rehabilitation’s success. Moreover, all the efforts made to rehabilitate them, to detoxicate them, and treat them, may be for nothing if no solution is offered toward their employment. A lack and failure in employment are one of the major factors for going back to prison[1].

Namely, the employment rehabilitation is a crucial element in the prisoners’ rehabilitation. A survey conducted by the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority (PRA) showed that the more the prisoner acquires working habits, while being accompanied by a person in the process following his release, the better are his chances of being reabsorbed into society.

Therefore the PRA has developed an employment assistance program. The program consists of helping the prisoner in finding a job and keeping it; attending a vocational training to better his chances of finding a suitable work position. The PRA employment co-ordinator[2] works at finding “friendly employers” who are willing to employ released prisoners.

Housing

Being a major worry of released prisoners, housing is given a priority to prisoners in the first year following their release in case they have no housing arrangements but who have joined a rehabilitation program. The Ministry of Housing cooperates with the PRA.

Social therapy

The PRA together with the social welfare agencies works to change attitudes of professionals toward released prisoners. It requires a strong cooperation between the different services, including the Social Services Agency, the Employment Bureau, the National Insurance Institution, the Ministry of Housing and the Police. These teams prepare a comprehensive and binding rehabilitation program for the released prisoner that returns to his community. This coordination prevents the program from failing. In many settlements the PRA operates voluntary associations whose members visit the prisoners in prison and serve as a person they can turn to for help after their release.

Police

The police’s attitude has weighty importance in the released prisoner’s chances to rehabilitate. The PRA has attained a series of arrangements with the police to ease the released prisoner’s reintegration into society. Among the decisions are: Minimising police interrogations during the prisoner’s working hours; The PRA’s authorisation to receive police information about the involvement or non-involvement of an prisoner in criminal activities; The PRA’s explanatory activities among policemen and the involvement of law representatives in the PRA’s activities such as seminars for social workers and prisoners’ pre-release courses.

The Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority’s Programs and the Individual Rehabilitation Plan

During the prisoner’s incarceration the prison staff may use a range of rewards and sanctions to help the prisoner better his ways. When the prisoner leaves prison, he must be surrounded by a range of regulations to help him control his ways, despite the freedom or precisely because of it. The PRA has developed two fundamental ways to rehabilitate released prisoners:

The first way is the prisoners’ return to the community: This way includes many risks of going back to crime, while at the same time it has the advantage of going back to living with his family a real life.

The second option is intended for prisoners that would fail should they choose to return to the community immediately following their release: We remove them from their natural community by a range of solutions:

  1. Rehabilitation in Kibbutz and Moshavim – Rural agricultural co-operative settlements, where the prisoner is adopted by a family.
  2. Religious theological rehabilitation in Yeshivas.
  3. The 3-in-1 Apartment Program: In which 2 student shared an apartment with a -prisoner[3].
  4. Residential Hostels including hostels for released prisoners, a Hostel for Former Prisoners Who are Family Men and the Hostel for Former prisoners Who Where Incarcerated for Violent Behaviour toward Their Families[4], and the Hostel for released Female Prisoners and released Female Prisoners with Their Children.

Preparing the community to accept and integrate released prisoners

If we work only on the rehabilitation of the released prisoners without preparing society to reintegrate them, we would only be doing half of the work. By rehabilitating the prisoner, we strengthen his expectations and widen the gap between him and the reality outside prison. Which in turn, would become an additional reason for his dissapointment and hostility toward society.

One of the main motivations a released prisoner has that encourages him not to go back to prison is his personal contacts [5]– a commitment toward a close person that represents for him good will from the law-abiding society. When this assistance is offered voluntarily, the prisoner perceives it as a personal commitment not to become entangled with law, much more then he perceives help given to him by the establishment because of his legal rights.

Moreover, since prisoners are often suspicious toward the establishment and the professional workers, expecting to be rejected by them, volunteers may serve as intermediary between the released prisoner and the professionals, and create confidence in community services[6]. Volunteers may also contribute to raise the public’s awareness and interest in the released prisoners’ problems[7], and be perceived as the public’s readiness to tolerate and accept the released prisoner.

Therefore the PRA has granted chief importance to pairing volunteers to released prisoners. The Authority believes it is one of the most effective ways to accompany the prisoner in the critical transitional period of returning to the community. And indeed, this belief is stated in the PRA’s law.

The innovation of the PRA’s volunteer program is not the volunteering itself, which of course existed prior to this project, but rather the forming of an obligatory professionally oriented framework for the volunteer’s activities. Each volunteer is carefully chosen and must undergo an intensive and comprehensive training program, including meetings with the social workers. The volunteer is matched with a prisoner 90 days prior to the release from prison[8].

Conclusions

After almost 3 decades of activities, we may assert that the rehabilitation of the released prisoner is not only the professional’s concern. Only the combination of public figures, businessmen and volunteers with the professionals’ activities will ensure a rehabilitation process.

We have no power to rehabilitate prisoners. Rather we have the power to create possible ways for the rehabilitation of the prisoner who chooses to rehabilitate. We may even say that: with a comprehensive social effort we have the ability to remove obstacles from the prisoners’ process toward rehabilitation. The creation of social openness, and public awareness that perceives the rehabilitation of the released prisoner as a prospective possibility, strengthen the prisoner’s readiness to choose the rehabilitation path and abandon the belief that “no matter what I do, I will always be an offender in the public eyes.” The deepening of this public awareness creates an appropriate foundation for the professional to accomplish his function with society’s consent and support.

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

When a larger central bus station was built in Tel Aviv we had managed to convince the constructer of the project to employ released prisoners. The agreement stated that we would ensure that the released prisoners would arrive on time and pass drug tests to make sure they were clean. The constructor, on his part, agreed on 2 things: to appoint a foreman the PRA would approve of, to make sure he would be able to work with released prisoners; and that twice a month he would meet with this group of released prisoners for a coke and cookies to tell them about the construction project and its progress, as if they were partners. The program was a success. At an advanced stage they even participated in a building cast’s course. Students volunteered to teach them elementary math and geometry so they could complete the vocational course. When the central bus station was completed, one of the participants, that was released after 15 years in prison, said proudly:

“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.”

Another participant in this program became a constructor himself.

Bibliography

Blackman, S.H. and K.M. Goldstein, “Some Aspects of a Theory of Community,” Community Mental Health, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1986).

Fox, S., “Families In Crisis Reflections on the Children and Families of the Offenders and the Offenders, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative, Criminology, Vol. 25, No. 3 (1981).

Gold, M., Status Forces In Delinquent Boys (Michigan: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 1963).

Hirschi, T., Causes of Delinquency (Berkeley: Berkeley University of California Press, 1969).

Libby, T.N., “The Residential Center For Released Prisoners St. Leonard’s House Windsor, Ontario Canada, Journ, Corrections, 10/12 (1968).

Meiner, K.G., A Halfway House for Parolees (San Diego: California West University, Federal Probation, 1965, 29/2).

Morris, P., Prisoners and Their Families (London: George Allen, 1965).

Schwarts, I.M., “Volunteers and Professionals, A Team In The Correctional Process,” Federal Probation, no. 3 (September 1971): 46-50.

Stein, P.H., “I’m Only One Person, What Can I Do?,” Federal Probation, no. 2 (June 1970): 7-11.

Stott, O., “Ex-Prisoners Find a Home,” Mental Health (London), 24/5 (1965): 206-208.

Sutherland, E. and D.R. Cressy, Principles Of Criminology, Seventh Edition, Part 1 (1970).

Sykes, G., The Society of Captives. A Study of Maximum Security Prison (Princeton, 1958).

Webster, M.D., The Social Consequences of Conviction (London: Heimemann, 1971): 4-14.

Hebrew publications

The Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority, Survey of the needs of 148 prisoners in the Hasharon and Maasiyahoo prisons, April 1986.

Levenstein, A., The ways prisoners’ families confront transitional situations — personal and social results, Dr. Philosophy dissertation (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1980).

Marinov, B., Seminar Paper on Rehabilitation and Classification Committees (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1988).

end notes

[1] Dr. Ariella Levenstein (1980) shows that the more a released prisoner has professional skills, the better are his chances to reabsorb into society.Moreover, since 75% of them have no vocational training, and lack working habits and difficulties in accepting authority, many lack stability in employment.

[2] He keeps in touch with the employers and employees (released prisoners). He organises an employment support group for released prisoners. To allow the released prisoner to fit in his working place socially and culturally, the PRA operates clubs for the leisure hours for released prisoners who work. In these clubs the participants receive enrichment, and that through lectures on different subjects (such as current political and social issues), they attend theatre plays, movies and different social activities.

[3] You can find a detailed description of the Program and a research about it in my article:

“The Three-In-One Apartment: Israeli Student-Prisoner Shared Housing Program,” The Correctional Psychologist, Vol. 30, No. 4 (October 1998): 1-9

[4] For descriptions of the different hostels see my article based on my lecture at the Fifth North American Conference on The Family and Corrections (Bethesda, Maryland): Avraham Hoffman, “Israel’s Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority: Programs for the Families,” Family & Corrections Network Report, Issue 19: 12-18.

[5] Martin Webster (1971) – this is one of an extensive literature dealing with volunteering in general and with volunteering with released prisoners.

[6] Blackman and Goldstein (1986) presume that reciprocal relations with friends in the normative community may reduce the released prisoner’s recurrence to professional personnel when they are in crisis.

Schwartz (1971) refers to the first period following the release as an intervention into crisis. The practical help and emotional support in this period have a major importance. Hence the volunteer has a significant role.

[7] Stein (1970).

[8] Meetings take place in co-operation with the prison social worker and to ensure continuation of the relationship, the volunteer must be from the same community as the prisoner.