Reintegrating prisoners is essential for everyone

Ricochet effect

Reintegrating detainees means reducing recidivism, and therefore criminal acts and their knock-on effect.

A criminal act has an impact on the victim, the perpetrator, their families and children, the community and society as a whole. This is the ricochet effect.

Supporting the reintegration of prisoners is therefore beneficial for a very large number of people, and helps to pacify society. In fact, more than 3 out of 5 prisoners reoffend. In our projects, when we promote professional and family reintegration, this rate is divided by 10.

In supporting the families and children of prisoners, we don’t forget the so-called collateral victims, who often lose their entire household income when a family member is incarcerated. The risk of falling into extreme poverty is then great. Children of prisoners are 5x more likely to end up in prison themselves.

Let’s take action and avoid the ripple effect… for everyone.

Inhumane detention conditions

In the countries where we operate, the reality of detention is far from the “hotel” image that people sometimes have. The reality, which we witness during our missions in the field, is quite different.

Extreme promiscuity

Sometimes with several dozen inmates in a cell of less than 20 square meters. People have to sleep squatting or taking turns (some lie close together while others wait standing up). It goes without saying that there are no beds, at best there are thin mats on the floor.

Insalubrity

In the cells, we usually share a bucket that doubles as a toilet. Apart from these, latrines are few and poorly maintained. The lack of hygiene in these places not only leads to unbearable odors, but also to major health problems.

Diseases

Mainly tuberculosis and scabies, which spare few inmates, but also diarrhea and other transmissible diseases.

Malnutrition

With one meal a day, often the same one, based on starchy foods, fruit and vegetable intake is rare. The lucky ones are sometimes brought food by their families. Others face serious shortcomings.

Understand that, in the vast majority of cases, delinquency is part of a life trajectory characterized by family problems (maltreatment and/or abuse during childhood in particular) and/or poverty.

Focusing on understanding this environment allows us to go beyond a purely punitive vision, and integrating an approach that acts on the context in which prisoners live can drastically reduce recidivism rates.

Without reintegration measures, the global recidivism rate is 67%, whereas for the beneficiaries of our projects, this rate is below 10%.

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