A rehabilitation facility is actually a correction center, not a place where hardened criminals should be kept in the hope of helping them become better people in society. I have always believed that a rehab facility should be for something that isn't damaged because it's impossible to correct what's already damaged. The purpose of rehabilitation is to prevent something from becoming completely damaged.
Let's imagine you have leftover food that you didn't keep in your freezer or reheat after some hours. If this leftover food finally becomes bad and you decide to put it in the freezer or reheat it, would that make any difference?
It wouldn't make any difference, and there is nothing we can do to bring the bad food back to normal. Freezing or reheating will only have an effect before the food gets bad, and that's the same case with humans. I am sure it looks odd to compare humans with food, but the illustration above shows the reality of rehabilitation and hardened criminals.
Honestly, I am not sorry to call a hardened criminal a damaged human because that's what they really are, and it's impossible to prevent them from living the evil life they are addicted to. The only thing a hardened criminal is capable of doing in rehab is influencing people who still have the hope of living a good life after being discharged from rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation is different from punishment, and I think that's where the mix-up is coming from. I believe that Nigerian rehabilitation facilities think their job is to punish people, while their main duty is to help these people become better humans.
I have seen in different movies how hardened criminals build a bigger network in prisons, and it just doesn't sit well for me. Hardened criminals deserve severe punishment, something huge and scary enough to discourage aspiring criminals from involving themselves in any form of crime and not just putting them up for rehab after committing terrible crimes. I believe putting hardened criminals in correctional facilities has even encouraged people to engage in crimes because they know it will all end with going to a rehab facility, and somehow they can get a chance to continue their wayward lives when they get out of the rehabilitation facility walls.
The closest I have been to a rehabilitation facility is watching TV until a classmate of mine who traveled abroad shared his experience with me, and I doubt if real rehabilitation happens in third-world countries except if there is private rehabilitation that delivers since they make huge money from providing good services.
While thinking about my response to the prompt, the only thing my mind could picture happening in Nigerian rehabilitation facilities is idleness, which is a terrible thing. I am sure we're familiar with the saying that an idle mind is the devil's playground, and it means keeping people in a building doing nothing wouldn't help them get better in any way.
Aside from my stance on putting hardened criminals away from correctional centers because it would have little or no impact on them, it should also not be a place for idleness.
A rehabilitation facility should be a world on its own where the people there should live normally, except for some restrictions based on why they are there. They should be open to working to pay their bills and learning if they want, not the other way around, where the government pumps the citizens money into catering for the needs of people who aren't contributing to the growth of society in any way. This approach can help them develop a sense of accountability and responsibility, which can be an important step towards rehabilitation.
It should be about making them realize what society expects from them, rather than just locking them up somewhere in the name of rehabilitation. They should be put to work instead of making them a burden on society.
Keeping their minds and hands at work can go a long way in helping them live a decent life when they finally get the chance to see the bigger world again. Being idle would only ruin their mindset, and I am not surprised why a lot of people claim that making people go through rehabilitation most times does not have any effect.
Rehabilitation doesn't mean idleness, and it's very far from that if we are being realistic. It's time we see rehabilitation as something beyond mere containment; we need to come up with a system that recognizes people's potential for change and empowers them to become better humans, not just for society but for themselves as well.
All images in the post belong to me