HE’S been behind bars for 14 years and when he’s released in time for Christmas he may have some sense of relief, but he will definitely be frightened.
That’s the assessment of Brisbane archdiocesan Catholic Prison Ministry (CPM) co-ordinator Denise Foley for a 31 year-old prisoner, soon to be home with his family for the first time since he was 17.
Ms Foley sees this man as being typical of a growing number of Queensland prisoners being released from high security jails straight into the community, without the gradual process of adjustment they would have had in the past and without the support necessary to allow them to properly integrate back into the community.
Ms Foley sees it as a recipe for disaster – for the prisoner, the family and society.
She said the 31 year-old had not had the chance to be involved in a leave of absence program, had had no time on a prison farm and had not had a stint of release to work, ‘when he can gradually get used to being back in the community’.
‘He will get to the release date, and he will walk out of a high security prison after 14 years, with a garbage bag in his hand – with the expectation he gets on with his life,’ she said.
‘Brett (a CPM prison support worker) will pick him up from the front gate, take him to Centrelink to get his first payment, and (the free man) will get on the bus to go back to his family.’
Ms Foley said the transition would not be easy.
‘(His family) said goodbye to a 17 year-old boy and get back a 31 year-old man – with less coping skills than he had when he went in, because the coping skills you develop in prison are highly inappropriate for life in the community.
‘He’s going to have to put aside all the coping skills he’s used for the past 14 years and learn a whole new set.
‘Prison is a violent, aggressive place so you learn skills to cope with that. If he uses those coping skills he’s learned in prison he’s likely to do something that will land him straight back in prison. It becomes a vicious cycle.’
Ms Foley said this man would be full of fear on his release.
‘He’s going to feel like he’s being looked at, he’s going to feel like everybody knows (that he’s just out of prison).
‘He’s going to go back to a family who would probably not want to have him, or have him in this way.’
But Ms Foley said the most difficult challenge for this family would be dealing with all that has been left unsaid for the past 14 years – ‘Why did you do it? What were you thinking? How could you let yourself …?’
Prison visits are in a public area and there is no privacy for working through difficult family issues, so it is all saved up until the prisoner is back home.
‘The families also don’t want to make it difficult for the prisoner so they bite their tongue about certain things. So you can imagine how that’s going to come out around the table at Christmas lunch. It’s a time bomb.’
This is an example of how the criminal justice system is not meeting what Ms Foley believes to be community expectations.
When she speaks to groups such as Rotary and Probus, she asks about these expectations.
‘Invariably the response I get back is: ‘We know people don’t do these things for no reason and we want the reasons to be addressed and we don’t want them to do it again’.’
They want criminals rehabilitated so they are able to better take their place in society once they are released.
‘Currently we’re being sold a model of imprisonment or containment that doesn’t get us there.
‘I see people who are worse than when they went in. I think the community’s expectation is that (prisoners) come out better. If we had outcomes that they come out no worse we’d be better off than what we’ve currently got.’
Ms Foley says that over the past 10 years, Queensland has had an increase in the number of people imprisoned, longer sentences and more people released from high security facilities with no gradual reintegration into the community.
The example of the 31 year-old nearing release is typical of what Ms Foley and CPM are witnessing more and more – people reaching the end of their prison time without having had access to the necessary reintegration programs.
Allowing prisoners to graduate from high security to medium and then low security, and to eventually have access to leave of absence and release to work is vital for them to develop and test the coping skills they need for life outside.
‘Just about all prisoners are having less of (such programs) and there’s an increasing number that are having none,’ Ms Foley said.
‘From March 2002 to March 2003, out of about 360 women released from prison, 75 per cent of them have been released from secure custody.’
This is a drift away from the reforms introduced after the Kennedy Report of 1988. Graduated release schemes and educational programs were part of the reforms.
Ms Foley remembers being part of a committee, involving prisoners, families, Corrective Services personnel and community groups, which explored better ways to facilitate family contact.
‘Research has long shown that the maintenance of family ties is a key factor in reducing recidivism,’ she said.
‘The bottom line is we have a 60 per cent recidivism in Queensland. Doesn’t that tell us that what we’re doing doesn’t work.
‘The crux of it is, when we let people out like that (without reintegration schemes), what do we think that does for community safety?’
If we think we’re safer when criminals are locked up, how safe do we feel if they are released with their problems multiplied?
‘Ideally I would like to see a more open and accountable prison system that actually encouraged dealing with the issues that led people there in the first place, that increases prisoners’ connection to family and community support services, and that every prisoner gets a gradual reintroduction back into the community. That used to happen.’
Ms Foley hopes that addressing some of these issues will minimise the impact of crime on people’s lives.
‘Even if we could reduce recidivism to 30 per cent or 20 per cent, imagine how much less pain and heartache there would be in our community,’ she said.
