Experts discuss why young prisoners fail to reintegrate into society after release

The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) organised a consultation with private sector on social economic reintegration of young prisoners of Sindh.

During the consultation organised at Marriott Hotel Karachi on February 29, 2020, the participants discussed the challenges and suggested solutions to engage former prisoners in economic cycle, said a statement issued by SPARC on Saturday.

Kashif Mirza from SPARC said that according to official data (October 2017), Pakistan has a total prison population of more than 84,000, of which more than 1,300 under 18 years of age. Due to lack of structural rehabilitative programmes in prisons and the social stigma attached with prisons, young prisoners fail to reintegrate in to the society.

The statement said that lack of opportunities for economic development and the continuous scorn from the employers and their own families, aggravates their trauma and they return towards criminal activities once again, often more extreme and violent compared to their initial crime.

Shumaila Muzzamil, project manager, SPARC, is reaching out to jailed youths in selected prisons of Sindh through imparting vocational skills, psycho-social support on how to re-integrate into society upon release from jail. She is also providing non-formal education and computer curses to inmates below the age of 18 years. Young women are also a focus to ensure gender parity.

SPARC’s project complements UNDP Pakistan’s Kamyab Jawan - Youth Empowerment Program, a multi-pronged strategy that aims at creating a facilitating environment for youth in conflict-affected areas of Sindh to emerge as agents of positive change and development. The excluded youth and other key stakeholders ensure that “equal opportunities exist for all youth to participate in Pakistan’s social, political and economic development processes so that all youth feel an empowered part of society with a stage in its future”.

Syed Minthar said construction is the backbone of any country. We can engage our engineers to train the prisons in basic labor as well. We can also give them work easily if they are skilled. Our industry is flexible in this regard. CPEC is an example, and Chinese are supervising the projects and earning more than the Pakistanis here.

Hamad Sultan said the public is electing unscrupulous elements as representatives, and they shouldn’t. He said that the private sector will never hire criminals, cheap labour maybe but never in jobs which require integrity. Public sector has quota for everyone. Why not for prisoners? Create awareness between the accused and the convicted. But understand that people won’t go for employees. People don’t even trust police. No normal person even goes to police station to get an FIR registered for mobile phone theft because they’re afraid of police.

Mr Huzaifa Jadoon, a social activist, said people don’t want their company to get a bad name. International standards allow you that luxury to hire prisoners if you’re monitoring them properly and placing them in jobs where there’s less chance of them repeating their crime. Sadly, most business owners think it’s too risky. They’re afraid that if word gets out that they’ve hired criminals, people will start working with them as employees and partners.

Asma Rashid, HR specialist, called for checking technical skills of people rather than checking their personality or previous history. Assessments during hiring process need to ensure this.

Rab Nawaz of the Sultan Bahu Trust said that if we don’t rehabilitate them, then they’ll become repetitive criminals. Because once who has gone to jail, he’ll never have fear of going there again. If they are left on their own, it will only create the crime. Rehabilitation programs should include spiritual teachings as well. We are not willing to help the needy.

The consultation revolved around the principle that young people after serving the punishment of the crime have the right to return to adequate standard of living and social and economic development.

Providing state of the art market-oriented trainings to prisoners, encouraging entrepreneurship and linking the market with the workshops in prisons were the recommendations given by the participants increase the chances of young prisoners’ social and economic reintegration after their release.

The participants also urged the government to take lead by hiring ex-prisoners and appointing local government officials as guarantors to build trust of the private sector.