Prisoners need love, not fear and hatred

The National Letters

I DISAGREE with Kepsy Branko whose letter was published in January titled, “Prisons becoming holiday camps”.
I must remind Kepsy that prisons are not holiday camps and will never become the holiday camps as he says they are.
Has Kepsy Branko ever been in prison that he should know so much about what goes on in there?
I spend most of my time with prisoners and I know that they don’t live in a holiday camp.
They eat white rice and tinned fish almost every day.
The Ox and Palm tinned meat that Branko mentioned is a rare treat.
But why complain if prisoners get fed?
The convicted criminals are sent to prison as a punishment not for punishment.
Being in prison is punishment in itself. You don’t need add extra punishment.
Why?
Because the effect of the enduring sense of the mental, physical and social being of a criminal in prison is felt and experienced against the nature of humanity enforced by the law is already a punishment.
The following are what is felt and experienced as punishment in prison:

  • Shame is felt and is carried on within for as long as a prisoner continues to recall the offence he or she has committed;
  • Unable to go anywhere from prison;
  • Unable to choose who to spend time with;
  • Constantly in the company of selfish, lawless and violent people and people who have psychological problems. They are constantly causing trouble;
  • Constantly sensing danger, with the possibility of violent attack or rape or even bumping someone as you walk past could become a major incident;
  • Unable to maintain social network;
  • Enforced celibacy;
  • Constant worry about the welfare of family; and
  • Anxiety caused by rumours of what is happening outside the prison.

Branko, would you be happy to take time off work and go to this holiday camp?
No?
This is exactly why almost nobody wants to go back to jail, except a very few insecure people.
The prison system, as it is, works as a deterrent, it makes people stop and think before committing crime.
When a person is in jail, he or she is still a human being, still a brother or sister, and deserves to be treated with dignity.
If we don’t treat them with dignity they will never learn to behave in a dignified way and they will come out worse off than they when they had gone in.
If you don’t give them proper food and healthy accommodation, you are making matters worse.
If you mistreat people in prison they are more likely to come out angry and hating others and so more likely to commit more crimes, hurt more people and then go back to prison, where the taxpayers will have to care for them.
What prisoners need to learn, in the long run, is not fear or hatred, but love.

Jozef W. Wayne
Prision Pastoral Care Ministry
Bomana