SADC prisons and correctional service officers have urged regional countries to step up efforts on reintegration and rehabilitation of former inmates to enable them to fit into their respective communities after serving time in jail.
By Phyllis Mbanje
Speaking during a tour of Harare Central Prisons last week, Sadc correctional service officers said former inmates struggled to fit into the community upon their release.
“Many upon their release cannot go back to their former employment or careers and so many of them get stuck and end up back in prison,” a correctional officer Kapalati Mubembe from Zambia said.
He said correctional services interventions were still lagging behind and there was need to put in place measures that would empower the former prisoners.
The Harare Central Prisons has a full-fledged programme designed to equip prisoners with basic skills in carpentry, garment construction, cabinet making, brick-laying, among others.
Prisoner, Nicholas Chombe, said he was optimistic that upon his release he would be able to sustain himself with skills earned behind the prison walls.
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“I do not feel helpless now and I know when I leave this place I will apply the skills that I am currently acquiring,” he said.
Meanwhile, Harare Central Prisons’ officer-in-charge, Chief Supt Never Kambizi appealed for donations of sanitary ware, food and other basic essentials, saying monthly allocations from Treasury were inadequate to meet their demands.
“We are getting our allocations from the government, but we also need beefing up like now we have a shortage of beans and sanitary ware,” he said.
Recently, Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda bemoaned the conditions prevailing in the prisons and called for an overhaul of the country’s prison system.
“There are no blankets, there is overcrowding. That is not proper in terms of the constitutional provisions. The prison system must change,” Mudenda said.
