Broaden prisoner rehabilitation

| Thursday December 19, 2013 15:21

For now we focus on deaths that occur as a result of a fighting between inmates, in which some of the perpetrators use an assortment of weapons, including knives and screwdrivers smuggled into prison facilities.

While it is common knowledge that there is a serious shortage of manpower across the civil service where recruitment even to replace retired or deceased employees, it is incumbent upon the government to provide security for people it has imprisoned primarily because they are in its care.

In respect of the deaths in detention that are our subject matter, the government must simply employ more prison warders to meet the demands that come with our overpopulated prisons.

It does not take a sociologist to know that people who are at the risk of going to jail are the poor and the young, and yet we must appreciate the fact that many of them did not go there out of choice.

Some of them grew up as law-abiding citizens but for the slip that their social status (or lack of it) predisposes them to, found themselves on the wrong side of the law.

Once they lose that innocence, they find themselves in a the midst of hardened criminals and exposed to recidivist behaviour that will see them in and out of the slammer.

Recent reports that a family is suing government for close to a million pula for the death in jail of their relative who died after being stabbed with a sharp instrument two years ago is an example that should send a clear message that we lower the premium on life at our own peril, if nothing else.

 A few years ago, a fight ensued between Batswana and Zimbabwean inmates over food, and in the process one inmate lost his life. That should have been a lesson learnt by authorities, but evidently not.

Once in prison, not only is a person’s freedom lost; but their dignity is seriously diminished and self-respect frayed.

After a time, those serving long sentences become hopeless and prone to homicidal rages. Yet human life is inherently and eternally sacred, hence we appeal for an improvement in the management of inmates. This should bring to an end the apathy and outright blasé with which inmates’ complaints are met.

To enhance this, authorities may want to consider increasing contact with the outside world for inmates by raising the frequency of prison visits by relatives, journalists, human rights lawyers, NGOs to hear the complaints or experiences.

There is no need to baulk at this because it should be viewed as a part of the rehabilitation of prisoners, which is what key aspect of what imprisonment is about.