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Ongoing Rehabilitation and Re-socialization Programs for Former Prisoners

May 11, 2015
 
Natia Gogolashvili

With the initiative of the Minister of Justice in the end of 2012 rehabilitation and re-socialization program was launched, which is implemented by the Crime Prevention Center. It is the first state program, which was created for the assistance of former convicts and its purpose is to promote their rehabilitation. Human Rights Center got interested in the engagement of female and juvenile prisoners in the programs and what concrete service they offer to beneficiaries.

On May 4, representatives of Human Rights Center met head of the Rehabilitation and Re-Socialization Department for Former Prisoners at the Crime Prevention Center Nino Biseishvili, social workers and lawyer of the center. The meeting took place in the frame of the project “Monitoring of the Conditions of Female and Juvenile Prisoners.”  During the meeting re-socialization programs for former prisoners were discussed. The parties also exchanged information about their working experience.  

Nino Biseishvili said there were some challenges when the program was launched; they continue work on the improvement and development of the programs.

“Our program was created on January 1, 2013 and initially 4 social workers were employed in it. It was established as a separate department from January 2014. Initially we could provide beneficiaries with service only in Tbilisi and it was a problem. Nowadays, we have our representations in Kutaisi, Gori, Batumi and Zugdidi and plan to expand our network in future according to the applications on the ground. We try to engage social workers with different background in the program. We took many training courses to increase capacity of social workers in all directions. We need special work with everybody. We have a psychologist, lawyer, innovative program manager and coordinator,” Nino Biseishvili said.

The Rehabilitation and Re-Socialization Department at the Crime Prevention Center works only with former prisoners – the people who left penitentiary establishment. According to the Center’s representatives it does not make any difference when their beneficiaries left prison or whether he/she is a probationer or not; they do not have any age limits either. It is noteworthy that involvement in the program is voluntary and absolutely depends on the kind will of former prisoners.

Nino Biseishvili said they have fewer female beneficiaries though they have many problems and really need help. “We have many male beneficiaries but it is relatively difficult for us to attract female beneficiaries. According to our observation, they have much more problems but refrain from making them public. They believe they can resolve their problems individually. The women are sentenced to inadequately high sentences. Alienation between the parents and children is also serious problem. Some female convicts had to abandon their children at a very early age and then guardians grew them up. Some kids were taken by husband’s families and they have no contact with mothers. Consequently mothers could not establish parenthood relation with their children. So, we realized that initially we should teach female prisoners parenthood and similar relations in order to later support them to get aware of their rights. For example, when you are in penitentiary establishment and your parenthood rights were suspended, some prisoners think they were completely deprived of this right. As a result of working with them, we concluded that female beneficiaries need different training modules that will address their particular needs and will be oriented at parents and children. It is not enough to have only individual approach to them.”

Senior social worker Beka Gotua at the Department said after several successful cases with regard to female beneficiaries number of female applicants increased.

“There were cases when a woman applied to us from penitentiary establishments, we met and started working with her. Fortunately, this particular case was successful; then the woman informed five more friends about us and they also applied to us. Thus, number of female beneficiaries increased and they recommend each other about our services,” Beka Gotua said.

The Department has problems with regard to involvement of juvenile beneficiaries in the re-socialization process. Considering their age, in order to participate in the program they need notification from parent that very often creates a problem.

“Generally speaking we do not have juvenile beneficiaries. We had two cases when we started working with juveniles but two weeks later they repeatedly committed crime and returned back to the penitentiary establishment. In three cases parents did not consider it was necessary to communicate with us. So, I think it is important that we started working with juveniles at the earlier stage,” Nino Biseishvili said.

Representatives of the department said they will renew program on erasing tattoos that is most often requested by former prisoners. This year, the age of program beneficiaries will also increase.

Social workers of the Crime Prevention Center start working with the convicts in penitentiary establishments 1-3 months prior to their release. They receive information about programs and services offered by the Center. Social workers, using the evaluation form, evaluate bio-psycho-social conditions of the former prisoner and involves him in the rehabilitation program according to the beneficiaries’ needs. Tamar Avaliani, deputy executive director of Human Rights Center said it will be better if convicts were informed about re-socialization programs and services at earlier stages than 1-3 months prior to their release.

“Transitional management process between us, penitentiary department and probation service has been underway for almost one year. The state policy is to ensure engagement of maximum high number of former prisoners in the rehabilitation process. When a prisoner leaves prison, he can apply to probation service or to us and involve rehabilitation programs. In the frame of the transitional management we enter penitentiary establishments and organize informative meetings with beneficiaries. We estimate needs of beneficiaries after they leave prisons. When we finish evaluation process, we start working on the estimation of their needs. We can only give recommendations to prisoners but can elaborate action plan only after the person leaves prison and applies to us,” social worker Shota Vashakmadze said.

According to Nino Biseishvili, they plan to organize focus groups with women and juveniles to better estimate their needs.

The Rehabilitation and Re-Socialization Program for Former Prisoner offer the following services to former prisoners; psycho-social service; resolution of health problems; professional capacity building and support in employment;  informal education/trainings; working with the family members of former prisoners; legal aid. At this stage, it is necessary to provide prisoners with more information about the services in order to make the program more effective and to attract more beneficiaries. 

This article was published within the frameworks of the project Monitoring State of Women and Juvenile Prisoners in Georgia which is implemented by Human Rights Center in partnership with Office of Public Defender of Georgia, by the financial support of Embassy of Bulgaria.
The article does not necessarily reflect the views of the donor. Human Rights Center bears sole responsibility for the content of the report.

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