Latin America and the Caribbean is one of the regions with the highest crime rates in the world. There are 1.5 million people in prison: a figure that does not consider the number of people who have already been released or which are about to enter. Even more striking is that 55% of them do not have a judicial sentence. In some countries more than 80% of the detainees are in custody without a trial.
When a person is imprisoned, a vicious cycle begins: the level of education or vocational training deteriorates during the sentence and the social networks are mostly limited to those known in prison. Once released, the person is stigmatized for having been imprisoned and his or her criminal records make it difficult to get a job. Despite having served a sentence, their punishment seems perpetual or at least prolonged as their reentry into society and the workforce becomes a huge challenge.
The social and economic reintegration of those released from prison is key for the countries in the region. Not only because of the fact that security is improved as recidivism is prevented, but also from an economic aspect: A successful reemployment turns former inmates into active contributors to the economy and to their families and as they cease to be part of the prison system, public expenditures decrease. Finally, by offering a second chance and enabling a real rehabilitation for such an invisible and vulnerable group of people, a culture of empathy is encouragedwhich contributes to social cohesion and a more equitable society, key to the development of any country.
Stigma and reemployment are complex problems with cultural and educational components, and involve topics such as image, social perception and prejudice, as well as discriminatory practices and laws. The imprisonment of a person also creates a stigma in their close family such as sons and daughters, partners, parents, who often find themselves in similarly vulnerable situations. At the same time, families play a key role in the reintegration process, so they are an important group to be considered in all reintegration efforts.
With this challenge in mind, we are looking forward to your proposals and videos, be innovative!
¹ Data retrieved from World Prison Brief
We spoke to Olga Espinoza, Director of the Research Center for Citizen Security of the University of Chile, about the challenges stigmatization and labor market reinsertion pose to people deprived of liberty in the region.
How would you describe the current situation in the region? What is being done and are there remarkable examples?
In Latin America and the Caribbean there are efforts to promote reintegration of offenders, but insufficient public investment in this area is generating a variety of problems. Among these is the fact that people that have gone through prison leave it without the skills needed to reintegrate into society and are therefore more likely to reoffend. Adding the stigma that a sentence to prison and experience in prison generates, the chances of a positive integration into the community diminish even further. There already are interesting initiatives in place, especially those that are executed in partnerships between government agencies and the communities such as some post-prison programs promoted by some municipalities in Chile, community councils in Brazil or reintegration programs implemented by NGOs in New York.
Why is it important to innovate when addressing these problems in Latin America and the Caribbean?
It is fundamental to generate conditions that favor and promote reintegration and as a result reduce recidivism. By involving the innovation community we include more actors and creativity into thinking about possible solutions to this problem. Meaning the reintegration of offenders ceases to be seen as the sole responsibility of the public sector and of the person in prison and becomes a more collective responsibility.
Which could be the greatest challenge to implementing successfully new solutions in this field?
Taking into consideration the little public support for initiatives related to the prison population and the lack of penitentiary policies with a clear priority on social reintegration, I think that the greatest challenge is the sustainability of the initiatives.
1.In Latin America, between 1996 and 2012,
the incarceration rate per 100,000 people grew
from 101.2 a 218.5, representando un incremento del
Source: Blog Sin Miedos del BID
2.Pre-trial detainees in LatinAmerica and the Caribbean
Fuente: WorldPrisonBrief
3.Public expenditure on the penitentiary system as % of the GDP (in US$, 2014)
The region spends on average about 0.15% of the GDP. This number does not seem very high for the majority of the countries, yet putting it into perspective this is 50% higher than the costs of the main government programs fighting poverty in Mexico (Prospera) and Brazil (BolsaFamilia).
Source: Blog Sin Miedos del BID
4.
In the 1980s, prison sentences appeared to be aneffective response to crime, giving rise to the so-called era of 'prison works' . As a result of this trend, since the early 1990s prisons have seen an increase in their populations, resulting in overcrowding, poor living conditions inside the prisons, violent interpersonal relationships, little access to prison programs, difficulties to benefit from early releases and numerous other consequences.
Upon entering prison, the person must adapt to the rules of confinement, which endorse criminal activity and are radically different to conventional social rules that the person supposedly must incorporate in order not to reoffend . This is what has been called 'cumulative disadvantage', meaning that the consequences of crime strengthen the causes that stand at its origin and continueto promote it, thus increasing the chances of recidivism .
Thus, the actual possibility for prisoners to reintegrate into society by staying away from criminal activity is in no way guaranteed by the mere fact of having served a prison sentence. On the contrary, there is evidence indicating that imprisonment, even for short periods, generates a great impact on family and social relations,on future employment opportunities as well as on a personal level, all of which are difficult to assess . Research suggests that relapse after incarceration is rather the rule than the exception; in short, there is a close relationship between incarceration and recidivism .
The problem of reintegration lies at the crossroads of the interests of the criminal justice system and those of public safety. Meaning the reintegration of offenders is not onlya technical but ultimately a complex political decision at a time when the alleged public demand for harsher sentences and actual need to productively reintegrate the high number of people being released from prison jeopardizes the punitive as well as the reintegrative approach . It is thus understood that in recent decades efforts have focused on findingout what kind of interventions work in terms of reintegration and how their impactboth on recidivism as well as on the reentryof prisoners into societycan be assessed. "
1 Hedderman, C. “Rediscovering Resettlement: Theory, Policy and Research” A. Hucklesby and l. Hagley-Dickinson (Eds.) Prisoner Resettlement. Policy and Practice, Cullompton, Willan Publishing (2007): 9-25.
2 Farrall, S. y Calverley, A. Understanding Desistance from Crime. Maidenhead, Open University Press: 2006.
3 LeBel, T., Burnett, R., Maruna, S., y Bushway, S. ‘The “Chicken and Egg” of Subjective and Social Factors in Desistance from Crime’. European Journal of Criminology 5.2 (2008): 131-159.
4 Farrall, S. y Calverley, A. op. cit.
5 Gendreau, P., Little, T. y Goggin, C. “A Meta-Analysis of the Predictors of Adult Offender Recidivism: What Works!”. Criminology 4.4 (1996): 575 - 607.
6 Petersilia, J. When Prisoners come Home: Parole and Prisoners Reentry, Oxford, Oxford University Press: 2003.
7 Visher, C. “Effective Reentry Programs”. Criminology and Public Policy, 5.2 (2006).
Freely translated from the publication: Metodología Estandarizada para el Monitoreo y la Evaluación de Proyectos y Programas de Reintegración Social Orientados a la Disminución de la Reincidencia Delictiva, p.91, OEA.
La segunda oportunidad merece innovación
Por Lorena Müller Camarena
Here you can find a selection of TED talks about this topic