The topic of discussion for this edition is very similar to one of the passages I was given to answer during the verbal aptitude session of an exam I wrote about three years ago.
The passage led to questions I was meant to answer during the exam. But I was so engrossed in the passage that I nearly forgot I was actually reading it to answer questions. As I was reading, it felt like I was in a seminar listening to a resource person. It was an eye opener as regards what ex-convicts are going through and the best ways to treat them when they are back in society.
Can criminals be rehabilitated?
The answer is a resounding yes. Without mincing words, humans can be rehabilitated. I understand this assertion may divide opinions because some people are so engrossed in wickedness that they look to be beyond saving. However, striking the right cords in them may fine-tune their minds to help them see a bigger picture they never saw before.
If they are made to see the world from a different perspective, with adequate care and patience, the most hardened criminals can be rehabilitated. Their problems, as in, what is vitally important to their growth from then onwards is what happens after rehabilitation - and this is where most of us have been getting it wrong.
One thing we all need to realize is that to a criminal, crime is a way of life. It is what they've gotten used to; it is how they live. A life of crime is normal to them. Wherever they go, their thought processes are tilted towards criminality. Thus, they can be said to be addicted to crime.
So, if we want criminals to be fully rehabilitated, they have to be treated as addicts. Every system that has worked to bring addicts out of their addictions and helped them to a new lease of life should be tried on criminals too. Else, criminals will be back to their crime in no time.
In the passage I read during the said exam, one point that was succinctly discussed was what regularly happens in the life of an ex-convict after serving his or her time.
The first and most difficult thing they are forced to face is a society that has moved on from them.
Before some criminals are incarcerated, they are married folks with a loving wife and wonderful kids. But by the time they are back home from incarceration, they mostly come back to an empty house, with the wife and kids already moved on. Some even come out to realize their woman is already married to another man. That's always a bitter pill to swallow; though, they have themselves to blame for that.
As if the pain of losing their family isn't enough, most of them struggle to get a job to get by - and this is where they mostly lose it. Most ex-convicts are avoided like leprosy. Once a company knows an applicant is an ex-convict they pull the plug even if the person is the most qualified for the job.
The amount of rejection ex-convicts face is probably the number one factor that drives them back to crime, just like a rehabilitated addict who goes back to his addiction. The fact is that they are rejected everywhere.
I remember when I was applying for postgraduate positions in schools, they all created a place in the application portal where one ticks if he or she is an ex-convict or not. Needless to say, an ex-convict is already at a disadvantage as regards getting admission into those schools.
In conclusion, if criminals get out of prison and get a new lease of life where they are not treated like people carrying an incurable contagious disease, they stand a better chance of getting fully rehabilitated and eschewing crime. But an armed robber who gets rehabilitated, gets back to the street only to realize no one is willing to offer him a job to feed himself will eventually go back to stealing. Afterall, he needs to eat. An hungry man is an angry man.
I rest my case!😎
