When incarcerated people regain a positive place in society, it is a success for the whole community.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
But despite a very high number of successes, how much news do we hear about people coming out of prison and managing to build a family, find a job, “rebuild a life”?
None.
However, the vast majority of criminalized persons who follow programs and are supported in their efforts by dedicated professionals fully reintegrate into our communities. This is proof that their rehabilitation worked. And even if 97.3% of people on parole do not reoffend during this period (management report, CQLC, 2021), we still need to increase support and supervision for offenders in the community while offering quality services. to victimized persons.
During this National Social Rehabilitation Week, we would like to highlight the work carried out by the hundreds of Quebec community organizations that work to support these criminalized individuals and to break down prejudices. A demanding job, without waves, as is often the case for the community sector, but which has a major impact for Quebec.
Social and community reintegration organizations: an essential link
In the shadows, these organizations will provide psychosocial support and the reintegration into the job market of people with criminal records, in order to allow them to become active citizens again, to pay taxes and to contribute positively to the society. They are the ones who bear a large part of the burden of the future of people in the criminal justice system, and this, in often difficult conditions. Middle work is one of field work, skill and experience, which is called upon to intervene in emergency contexts, often doing more with less, in unusual hours and with exiguous salaries. There is no teleworking in this type of intervention.
However, unstable funding and the shortage of skilled labor remain major issues.
The Quebec government has taken steps in the right direction in recent months by offering its support to the community sector. But structural support, based on a long-term vision, would make it possible to recognize the importance of this cornerstone of our social safety net. Rehabilitation is the only way to truly protect our communities in the long term, and this protection requires adequate community support and supervision services: the work of these organizations continues well beyond the sentence and judicial warrants.
Break down prejudices
Especially since helping criminals to rebuild their lives is far from easy. On the one hand, a criminal record greatly hinders the search for employment and housing, increases car and home insurance premiums and limits travel to the United States. On the other hand, the road to rehabilitation is winding and requires the support of both professionals and the community, which must face up to its own prejudices.
Because the problems linked to social reintegration are also to be found in the way people are viewed in the process of rehabilitation.
We must realize that at the base, we did not all start from the same starting line: the family past, poverty, inequalities in the school system, food insecurity, dating, addictions have an ascendant decisive on the adult we become. Consider, for example, that 60% of incarcerated people have not finished high school, 39% have a member of their immediate family who has experienced legal problems and 60% have already been victims of violence. The portrait is telling.
Social rehabilitation makes it possible to give a second chance to people who sometimes did not even have a first. And properly funded, it helps protect our communities.