By PASSY HAACHIZO –
CORRECTION facilities or prisons are supposed to be places where those who come in conflict with the law are helped to reform and re-integrated back into society.
But over the years, the lack of incentives for those in incarceration to access education and skills training has instead resulted in the production of hardcore criminal elements who, when released back in society, ended up in prisons again because of failing to integrate into normal life.
The few that manage avoid becoming second offenders face stigma at the hands of society and risk lapsing into depression due to isolation because they are left feeling hopeless about how to start life all over.
However, there are new developments where inmates who are about to be released from correctional facilities have started receiving life skills training from the country’s three highest institutions of learning namely Mulungushi University in Kabwe, Copperbelt University (CBU) in Kitwe and University of Zambia (UNZA) in Lusaka.
Zambia Correctional Service (ZCS) Commissioner General Percy Chato said the decision to engage the three institutions is aimed at empowering inmates from various correctional facilities with skills to enable them integrate in society once released.
Speaking when he presented certificates to 40 inmates at Mulungushi University recently, Mr Chato said out of the 20,000 inmates in correctional facilities, a good number were repeat offenders.
In this programme, UNZA will train the inmates in counselling and psychotherapy while CBU will offer training in various aspects of human rights.
Mulungushi University will concentrate on training the inmates in business and entrepreneurship.
The 40 inmates that successfully received certificates at Mulungushi University on July 11, 2017 were the first shoot to benefit from the programme since it started.
The 40 were drawn from Central, Copperbelt and Lusaka provinces.
“I want to reaffirm that entrepreneurship should be taken as a viable alternative to enhance rehabilitation and successful reintegration,” Mr Chato said.
He said the programme design must consolidate progression of inmates into entrepreneurs.
He said introduction of entrepreneurship and business training in the correctional service was also aimed at ensuring that inmates who were almost winding up with their sentences are made to be self-reliant.
Mr Chato urged the recipients of the training programmes to start brainstorming over the kind of projects they would venture into to achieve change.
Mulungushi University acting vice chancellor Judith Lungu said the partnership with the ZCS would realise the institution’s desire to empower offenders with life serving skills.
Ms Lungu expressed confidence that the skills transferred from her lecturers to the inmates would yield positive results.
“We have been able to prepare them (inmates) for re-integration and as a university, we shall continue with this stance,” she said.
Ms Lungu also said the university would make use of the research centre established last year to ensure that many lives of the offenders are transformed.
Mulungushi University School of Business lecturer Sepo Imasiku said the institution was slowly growing and its decision to help in shaping the future of inmates was long overdue.
Dr Imasiku said it was cardinal that the inmates suit the current change of name of ZCS, which has been transformed from a prison to a correction service, by proving themselves through the work they acquire during the time of serving sentences.
She said there is need for an end to stigmatization of the incarcerated people as they still enjoy human rights.
“This is the first time we are privileged to work with the Zambia Correctional Service and we want, as an institution, to continue so that as the leave the correction facilities, they should be able to manage life again; remember there is no human being that has to be condemned,” she
said.
School of Marketing lecturer Mary Lubinda noted with surprise the highest level of concentration portrayed by inmates during the training initiative.
Ms Lubinda said the inmates had shown an exemplary desire to bring about change in their society once they were out of the correctional facilities.
“I had a wonderful lecture with the inmates and my subject or area of concentration was customer service where I was able to impact entrepreneurial skills into the inmates so that as they go back to meet with members of the general public, they know the approach to
take,” she said.
Ms Lubinda urged the inmates to use the same probing questions, the same powerful concentration and other approaches they portrayed during the lessons to benefit the public.
“The knowledge that we have empowered them with, I can assure you, they will be able to handle customers who are talkative or uncompromising or those who could be in any other mood,” she said.
School of Agriculture and Natural Sciences lecturer Sombe Makeche said the institution will continue to make use of the Mulungushi University research club which was formed last year to find out what was needed in order to contribute to the society.
Ms Makeche, who is also a club member, said the club was partly established to help eradicate poverty by offering solutions to different challenges that were being faced by the community.
“The club has existed for almost two years and during our research, we have been looking at issues that are affecting the community and it is our sincere hope that the inmates also help in poverty reduction once they are released,” she said.
The involvement of the research club delighted the inmates who appreciated the gesture.
Rita Chola, one of the inmates who underwent training urged the society to accept the inmates as fellow human beings especially now that they were equipped and ready to fight any negative tendencies in society and contribute to national development.
“We want to appreciate Mulungushi University and ZCS management for this wonderful gesture; we just pray that the society will appreciate the skills we have acquired,” she said.
Abdray Mubiana, another inmate, called on Mulungushi University, CBU and UNZA to continue partnering with ZCS and find means of helping the public that had similar challenges in the area of training.
He said everyone was a potential inmate.
Mr Mubiana said the course he underwent was good enough to help him resist temptations of going back to his old ways no matter how much he would be provoked or tempted once he serves his sentence.
“We have seen some of our friends who left prison coming back maybe because they lacked these skills which we have acquired and I want to encourage my friends to make use of the skills when they finish their sentences,” he said.
ZCS officer in-charge for the extension services Tobias Mwanza commended Mulungushi University for providing training to the inmates.
“I want to appreciate Mulungushi University for what you have done; I’m glad that the theme was crafted in rationale that inmates come into our facilities from different communities and after their time in correctional service, will go back to the same community where they
came from and they need the skills,” he said.
It has been said many times over that everyone is a potential offender.
Therefore, there is no need for those in society to shun inmates once they serve their sentences and are released back into the society.
Further, the partnership between the training institutions and the ZCS is a work up call to the Government to ensure that young people are empowered with different projects to prevent them from being found on the wrong side of the law.
If they are prevented from breaking the law, that will keep them away from being sent to the already congested correctional facilities.