REINTEGRATION OF PRISONERS

Reintegration of Prisoners

Reintegration of Prisoners

Introduction

The word jail is known to all as a detention facility designed to punish and to charge the crime. Yet even at the end of the detention, sentence is still there. Indeed rehabilitation was considered late. Since, it is about balance between punishment and reintegration of the criminal back into society. Reintegration is the fact to ensure that the criminals lead a normal life after detention. Reintegration has a very specific meaning: it is inserted; reintroduction of someone in the society or group of people. For example, an individual who has been in prison for ten years and has been cut off from the world will be involved in a process for ensuring his rehabilitation, which is not always easy (Welch 1996). Rehabilitation of a prisoner into society is very important because if it goes well, the criminal acts and offenses will not be tried again. Indeed, there have been cases that some ex-offenders reoffend in the hope of finding shelter. Adapting to a new-found freedom is often difficult for people who have been incarcerated for a long time. In addition, the way people look at them is often negative and friends and family are not always present to support ex-prisoners. If a prisoner is alone on his release from prison, the associations may have a role of guardian.

Today, many people have preconceived ideas about the prison for example, overpopulation, abuse, while they cover only a part of the prison population. In addition, people often consider the conditions of prison life and consider that the criminal would be leading his life the same way, whereas, this is not the case at all.

There are different types of institutions: jails are supported: accused and sentenced to less than one year in prison and penitentiaries. Of these, there are power houses (high security), the centers for penalties furnished (preparation for release of prisoners sentenced to less than a year of their release), the centers of semi freedom (which are intended that inmates keep on continuing their work) and finally, detention centers (sentenced from one to twenty five years in prison). Prison Montmédy, is a detention center since 1990. It currently houses 310 inmates supervised by 120 staff members. The majority of prisoners are convicted of moral crimes such as rape and sexual assault, and this relates more particularly to the prisoner having detention of more than forty years. However, in such kind of crimes, younger inmates are involved more in comparison to aged ones (Irwin 1997). Taking into account the perceived ideas, one could analyze what are the living conditions of prisoners and how their rehabilitation in France and especially in the detention center of Montmedy is taking place. Montmedy has been kept as an example for supporting all the claims involved in this research paper, for the purpose of validating all information with the help of examples.

Initially, this paper will consider the living conditions of prisoners and then in a second step, this paper will look how ...