Rehabilitation group for prisoners looks at direction changes

Press, 27 July 1988, Page 17

Rehabilitation group for prisoners looks at direction changes

The Prisoners’ Aid and Rehabilitation Society should do more referral work for released prisoners, with less pressure on it to feed and clothe them or find accommodation and support, says Kevin Butson, a society field worker.

PARS has only three field workers for Canterbury Westland, and its resources are stretched. It is funded by the Justice Department but relies on volunteer help.

The Christchurch branch has been looking for more volunteers for its prison visiting teams. It has found that retaining people is difficult after the initial “freak out” of first-time visiting. “We’re trying to upgrade our service,” says Kevin Butson, a former inmate. “We want to start Access life skills programmes inside and post-release ones when they get out.”

“We’re working on a stop-off hostel for families, in Antigua Street, where they can stay when they have to come from outside Christchurch.

"Until now,” he says, “they’ve usually been put up in cheap motels.

“We’re toying with the idea of starting some food banks, instead of handing out food vouchers and money like we do now.” The idea is to approach food outlets and producers, and to begin a cheap food supply.

“We’ve also teed up things for prisoners with the Community Law Centre and Budget Advice.” PARS is also looking at adult fostering. People could provide support for a released prisoner. It would require strong and enthusiastic people to make it a success.

The four Christchurch prisons have about 600 prisoners. Demand for more prison space means that Christchurch inmates are sent all over the country,

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often with only four or five hours notice.

Because of the isolation of prison, released prisoners need a huge amount of help fitting back into society, says Mr Butson. “A lot of normal things like ambition are taken out of their lives when they go inside. They have no choice. The outside becomes a fantasy, the inside a reality. They lose their worldly click.”

When the time comes to return to society, inmates often cannot cope. “The World Health Organisation classifies someone who’s been imprisoned for more than three months as a disabled person,”

Problems such as anger are not dealt with constructively inside, and prisoners tend to spend a lot of time talking about their “blues.”

A cycle hard to break

When it comes time to leave prison, inmates generally have no jobs, little money (apart from their $l2O “Steps to Freedom” money), and often no place to live. “When they come out, they’re stuffed if they’ve got no family. Sometimes they come in here and only have the clothes they stand up in. “Okay, they’ve committed crimes against society, but we’ve got to be responsible for them. They’re not going away for life — they’ve got to be equipped to survive when they return.” Kevin Butson does not think

Patrick Mclennan

they are acquiring the life skills they need. This causes re-offend-ing: criminals get into a cycle and find it very hard to get out. “They get into a prison-offend-ing cycle for about 10 years, and

then they just get spat out. They only change when they’re completely fed up with being inside.)’ Rehabilitation works only when criminals definitely want to change their lives. He can’t

explain why they want to change after all that time. It “just happens.” “They often come here for four or five months when they’re on the bones of their arse. They seem to get out of their old habits, away from their peer group and just survive.”

Field workers act as go-be-tweens for prisoners with social services, families and the Justice Department. There are still no effective ways of integrating prisoners with society. Various schemes have been suggested to ease this difficulty, such as Through Care, but nothing has been implemented. Probation officers offer aid in a limited way but they’re still perceived by prisoners as authority figures, says Mr Butson.

He is aware of many people calling for harsher penalties for re-offenders but does not think that wil solve anything. There is no more crime than five years ago, he says — it is just being reported more. In the same time, however, there have been drastic changes in the prison system. The proportion of Maoris in prison has leapt in the last decade. They now make up 70 per cent of the prison population. Mr Butson dismisses the tough American, shaven-haired stereotype of prisoners. They are gen-, erally between 20 and 30 years old, and poor. Another field worker, Pat McGuiness, stresses the hardship a wife arid family undergo when the husband is imprisoned. They are often the forgotten victims of the penal system. As much as they can, PARS provides emotional and financial support for these families. Ms McGuiness says that doing the “lag” can be harder for female prisoners because /they have more emotional ties than male inmates, especially to their children.