Role of Counseling in Prisoner Rehabilitation

Published on May 2016 | Categories: Types, School Work | Downloads: 28 | Comments: 0 | Views: 158
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Understanding the roles that counselling can play in rehabilitating ex-prisoners

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Role of Counseling in Prisoner Rehabilitation. Chux Gervase Iwu
Introduction In South Africa, crime rates have gone down. While this is debatable, the state of South Africa's prisons tells a different story. There have been attempts by prisoners to break away from jail. Some of these attempts have ended fatally with the prisoner, some other inmates and even the officials losing their lives as a result. There are serious concerns about the state of South Africa's prisons especially in the light of the recent reports regarding maltreatment of inmates and regular uprising by prisoners for better prison life. At one time, Special Assignment, an SABC3 weekly investigative programme highlighted the plight of prisoners in South African prisons. From that programme, I was able to gather the following:
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Our prisons are overflowing with prisoners. Prisoners are abused by both wardens and the stronger prisoners. Corrupt officials abound in South African prisons. Ngconde Balfour's pledge to turn things around. A call to well-meaning South Africans to suggest how our prisons could serve their rightful objective of rehabilitating prisoners. Prisoners claim that Yizo Yizo (a South African television drama series) is a sham representation of what obtains in South African prisons. There have been conflicting arguments as to why our prisons are overflowing with prisoners. The justice system has been blamed for not treating cases of inmates with the right speed they deserve. Correctional Services department has also taken a knock for not doing its job of rehabilitation very well, which has resulted in the return of exprisoners to the prisons. While I am keen on engaging in a discussion of all of the above, I would instead discuss the fifth point. As far as I am concerned, South Africans are challenged to supply possible solutions to the disgrace called prisons in South Africa.
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The Inmate Rehabilitation Channel (IRC) The IRC is a programme that will see close interaction among counsellors, the management of prisons, the prisoners themselves and the communities. It is a process whereby counsellors are engaged to assist the prison authorities in managing prisoners. It will require drawing up of several programmes that will expand the understanding of the management of prisons in the practice of rehabilitating prisoners. The counsellor's main responsibility will be to the prison authorities and the prisoners. Counselling sessions will have to be held for the prison authorities who need to be psychologically equipped to deal with the prisoners. Counsellors will also have to be allowed access to prisoners, talk to them, find out what their concerns are and possibly get them to atone for their 'sins'. Once some relationship is established between the counsellor and the prisoner, it becomes a lot easier to work on the minds of the prisoners and to get them to see reasons why they need to serve time. Counsellors are well trained to soften their clients and get the best out of them. If a counsellor is able to get the prisoners to become objective towards their prison terms, the job of the prison authorities will become a lot easier. There is a need for proper education of the management of prisoners, the prisoners themselves and the communities that these prisoners retire to when they are discharged. Education of the management of prisons and the prisoners can be in the form of workshops, conferences and or mainstream counselling. Mainstream counselling has been found to be very effective in seeking interventions for alcoholism, drug use/abuse, gambling and many other society vices. Counselling helps in an understanding of a situation. The aims of counselling are to explore, understand and resolve issues. If prison officials add counselling as a part of their service deliverables, they will be in a better position to help the prisoners through their term. A major feature of counselling here is to make the prisoners understand why they have to do term and also assist in preparing the prisoners for a life after their term. The prisons therefore should encourage the prisoners to learn a trade or even pursue further education and training that will better their lives and the lives of the communities that they retire to after their term. In return for taking up a

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trade or an education, the communities become more acceptable of them when they are finally released. Elements of counselling A major element of counselling is positive and active listening. In this case, the counsellor has the mean task of listening to sordid tales and trying to make sense out of them with the objective of effecting rehabilitation. It is important at times like this that the counsellor listens, not only to the spoken words but also to the undertones; the emotions. For effective listening therefore, the counsellor should motivate himself to listen effectively by empathising with the counselee. He should provide clear and unambiguous feedback, ask questions to clarify points and make use of non verbal gestures. Relationship building. is an attempt by the counsellor to develop a relationship with the counselee. This helps in building trust and confidence between the counselee and the counsellor. Great caution has to be applied here if positive results are expected. Some inmates do not know how to give back friendship and might suspect your objective. While trying to build relationship and applying the principle of positive listening, it is important to apply the element of verbalisation. This simply means that you try to repeat the things that the counselee says so that you are able to establish their context and content. For instance, if the counselee says he wishes to kill somebody, you could gain a better appreciation of that by repeating it and perhaps asking why he thinks that is a good idea. Play this role carefully because the counselee might take offence and think that you are making a caricature of him. The buying time strategy. can be applied in a counselling situation to gain some more time in order to be able to produce positive results or gain a better understanding of a situation. If, during the counselling session, the counsellor is unable to match the counselee with answers or better understanding, it might be worth it to set a future date essentially to enable you to come up with better answers. Again, play this role with great caution. Do not give the counselee the impression that you are indeed buying time especially if he has been completely sold on your objective. The confidence that you have gained might just disappear. Note taking and interviewing pattern: It is healthy to document processes that are applied whether a structured interview pattern is used or not. Taking notes while the interview is going on should be done stylishly. Some counselees might
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think that the notes will be used against them. This is where gaining the trust of the counselee becomes extremely important. For successful counselling sessions to take place, it is prudent to establish time schedules. The counsellor should also try not to monopolise the session while he tries to curry the confidence of the counselee. Counselling challenges Aside from establishing time schedules and trying not to monopolise counselling sessions, there are other counselling challenges namely - diversity issues and communication. Diversity issues will include social backgrounds, culture and systems and racial prejudice while communication issues will to language, communication patterns such as gestures, and movements. Noise will also qualify as a communication issue in counselling. belief refer body

Social backgrounds: Differing social backgrounds can undermine a counselling session. Once the counselee gets the impression that the counsellor is talking from a position of reckless authority and or superiority, the counselee might not wish to cooperate with the process. Care must be taken not to exude any class consciousness that will be detrimental to the process. Culture and belief systems differ. A black prisoner might not want to be counselled by a woman as black males do not particularly favour women leadership. Racial prejudice: With South Africa's racial divide it is only reasonable to imagine that racial prejudice will pose a serious challenge to a counselling session. A white male counselling a black male prisoner for instance might be misconstrued as an attempt by the white male to intimidate the black male. With 11 official languages in South Africa, the language of communication in a counselling session becomes a very serious challenge. Although an interpreter can be employed to facilitate communication, we all know that nuances and emotions are not the same when messages are interpreted. Gestures and body movements sometimes are poorly misunderstood. In fact, they could almost detach a counselee from a counsellor. It is common to associate flagrant hand gestures with homosexuals. Imagine a non homosexual being counselled by a flagrant hand gesturing homosexual!
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Noise can thwart a counselling session. So would human movement. A good location that does not disturb the concentration of the counselee is suggested. Crucial to the objective of encouraging communities to accept discharged prisoners, is the creation and maintenance of good relations between prison authorities and the mass media. These communication systems can be used to publicise the good works that are done in our prisons. Feature articles in newspapers and magazines can highlight the 'what' and 'how' of these good works and the various positive outcomes they have had. Essentially, community newspapers are suggested in this regard. Television programmes can be developed to talk about vices, prison life, and the rewards that accrue from the excellent works of prisons management. It might be worthwhile to get testimonials from prisoners. It is believed that radio audiences in South Africa outnumber those of television and the print systems combined. Prison authorities can then capitalise on the large radio network to explain to communities that truly prisoners do get rehabilitated. Conclusion The return of ex-prisoners to the prisons can be curtailed if proper counselling is done while they are serving time. Proper counselling will entail educating the prisoners, getting them to learn a trade and understanding that they could make a difference to their communities with the new skills they could acquire. Counsellors can suggest the relevant skills and vocations that prisoners can take up. Counsellors can also design programmes that fit not only the time schedules of prisons staff, but also enlighten and educate them on the best ways of interacting with prisoners, counselling the prisoners and getting the best results. Counsellors can assist in the facilitation of collaborative arrangements with the mass media by identifying areas where such cooperation is required and even providing logistical presence to actualise such cooperation. Inmate rehabilitation channel is one sure means of realising the objectives of the prisons. A collaboration of proper counselling methodologies with prisons management will go a long way in ensuring that those who serve time in jail get rehabilitated. Communities also need to know what the prison authorities are doing to rehabilitate prisoners. Television, newspapers, and the radio can be used to tell the public about the good work that the prison authorities are doing. If the communities know what is going on, it becomes a lot easier for them to accept the prisoners when they return.
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Remember that confidentiality is the watchword in counselling. Gossiping about clients is frowned upon.
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SABC3 is a channel of the South African Broadcasting Corporation Ngconde Balfour is the Minister for Correctional Services in South Africa

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