The modern domestic penitentiary system is experiencing a serious crisis today, as evidenced by the increase in the number of collective protests by convicts, most of which occur in a non-violent form.
Meanwhile, serving a sentence by convicts in a correctional facility is a leading factor influencing their future life.
That is why the problem of resocialization of convicts is particularly acute today.
What is resocialization of convicts?
Resocialization of convicts implies the process of adaptation and restoration of skills for entering society after release from punishment; This is a system of rehabilitation measures to restore weakened or lost social functions while serving a criminal sentence and personal status.
What is called resocialization in Russia is defined in foreign practice as social therapy, the main areas of which include:
- training of convicts;
- labor activity;
- playing sports;
- participation in cultural and educational events.
How do convicts find a place in society?
In Europe, there have long been services to help former prisoners - probation services. They monitor convicts on probation and probation, lead those sent for treatment, and subsequently carry out resocialization, which includes employment and assistance with housing. The head of the Russian Presidential Council for Human Rights, Mikhail Fedotov, has repeatedly spoken about the need to create a probation service in Russia. “The probation service will require funding; it can be created on the basis of the criminal executive inspections that exist. But when these inspections employ only a few people who must look after several thousand people released from prison, it turns out not to be a probation service, but a profanation service,” Mr. Fedotov said a year ago. At the end of 2021, the Russian Presidential Council for Human Rights developed recommendations for changing the penal system. Among them is the creation of a probation service for the social adaptation of those released from prison, HRC member Andrei Babushkin explained to Kommersant. The question of the possibility of transferring to the Federal Penitentiary Service the escort of persons released on parole during the period when they should be under control is currently being considered, First Deputy Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia Anatoly Rudy said in March of this year. But the FSIN proposes to give resocialization to social activists. The findings of the IPP study in this regard can be used as arguments in the discussion on reforming the resocialization system.
Anastasia Kurilova
Desocialization and resocialization: differences
Desocialization is the loss of learned values, norms, social status, habitual way of life or a conscious rejection of them.
It can take place over a short or long period, be more or less intense, voluntary or forced.
As a result of desocialization, people lose their human appearance and previously acquired values, the personality is leveled, dissolves in the aggressive mass. Status differences, as well as norms and taboos that operate under normal conditions, lose their meaning.
If desocialization occurs as a result of a voluntary renunciation of previous values (for example, entering a monastery), then this process does not lead to moral degradation of the individual, but, on the contrary, can even enrich him spiritually.
In the case of forced desocialization (loss of a job, imprisonment), the individual turns out to be unable to withstand the pressure of social circumstances, which pushes him towards an illusory escape from reality (vagrancy, alcoholism, drug addiction).
One example of desocialization is committing a crime, which means violating social and legislative norms and encroaching on protected values.
The commission of a criminal act indicates the desocialization of the subject: thereby he demonstrates his rejection of the key values of society.
The desocialization of convicts is caused by a combination of interrelated factors, such as:
- forced isolation from society;
- inclusion of convicts in same-sex groups;
- strict regulation of behavior at all levels;
- wearing a special uniform;
- replacing the name with a “number”, the old furnishings with an impersonal one;
- unlearning old values, customs and getting used to new ones;
- loss of freedom of action.
During prison desocialization, the convict is morally degraded and alienated from the world to such an extent that his return to society is often impossible.
An indicator of desocialization in this case is recidivism and, as a consequence, a return to prison norms and habits.
Resocialization, on the contrary, means the assimilation of new values; it is a process of re-socialization. The main goal of criminal punishment is the resocialization of criminals, aimed at preventing recidivism.
To reduce the likelihood of reoffending, it is important to neutralize the negative consequences of imprisonment and facilitate the adaptation of those released to living conditions in freedom.
By providing assistance to those released in finding a job and restoring social ties, government agencies and public organizations contribute to their resocialization.
With the normal course of the resocialization process, the likelihood of reoffending is significantly reduced.
Thus, desocialization and resocialization are 2 forms of manifestation of socialization. Both can be deep and superficial.
Russian courts prefer to deprive citizens of their freedom
Another indicator under study is the share of employed people among this category of citizens. The survey showed that on average, about 20% of the region’s residents released from prison turn to employment centers (usually 60–80% of the total prison population), but only a third of them get a job. At the same time, other categories of citizens are twice as likely to find work through employment centers. Partially helping is job quotas for former convicts and benefits for employers. For example, in the Leningrad region three federal government institutions receive tax breaks for this, in Tatarstan employers are entitled to compensation, and in the Chelyabinsk region the budget co-finances the wages of those released for three months.
A consequence of the work on resocialization can be considered statistics on those who committed repeated crimes within a year after release, the researchers note. At one end of the ranking for 2017 are Komi (34%) and the Kemerovo region (32%), at the other is the Krasnoyarsk Territory (10%).
Resocialization of those sentenced to imprisonment
Today, the resocialization of convicts is a priority task that needs to be addressed at the level of government agencies.
The process of resocialization is aimed at returning those released to life in society, acquiring the necessary skills for life in society, and complying with accepted norms and legislation.
A convicted person who has not undergone the resocialization process is dangerous to society.
The activities of correctional institutions should be aimed at resolving 2 main problems:
- execution of punishment;
- resocialization of the convicted person, the formation in him of a set of qualities necessary for adapted behavior in society.
Resocialization includes:
- prevention;
- correction;
- recovery.
Prevention is aimed at eliminating and smoothing out the causes, conditions and factors that caused deviations in personality development. It is often focused on a person’s social environment.
Special prevention allows you to create a climate in society that makes it possible to prevent the commission of crimes. General prevention is aimed at developing anti-criminogenic motives for behavior and understanding the inevitability of punishment for a crime committed.
Correction involves working with specific deviations that the convicted person has and correcting behavior.
With prolonged involvement in criminal activity, a person develops certain habits and skills that make up a criminal stereotype. He loses normal work skills, acquiring criminal ones in return.
Before adapting a criminal to life in an adequate social environment, it is necessary to destroy the criminal stereotype in him and replace him with a work stereotype.
Restoration of rights involves taking into account the key provisions of the UN Convention regarding human rights to:
- life;
- a dignified existence;
- getting an education;
- labor, etc.
Preparing convicts for release is an important stage in the activities of correctional institutions . To this end, a set of measures is being carried out aimed at supporting those released in their subsequent work and everyday life, preparing them for life in conditions of complete freedom, which is the resocialization of convicts.
Social resocialization
Successful resocialization of convicts is impossible without changing the attitude of others towards them: at the level of society, social institutions, production teams, public organizations, family and relatives.
Society should show humanity towards former convicts, understanding that punishment should not last a lifetime.
A humane society does not take revenge, but shows tolerance, loyalty and compassion towards those who have been freed, recognizes their rights, provides social support, protection, and guarantees.
Unfortunately, such humanity is not yet observed in our society, even on the part of the state. We still need to learn to support those who have stumbled, to give them a chance in life.
Former prisoners should not feel like outcasts from society, otherwise prison will become their only refuge for the rest of their lives.
Social resocialization of convicts must also have a legal basis, namely:
- law on social adaptation of convicts;
- legal norms for maintaining housing, employment after release;
- responsibility of local authorities.
What is psychological resocialization?
An important aspect of the resocialization process is psychological support for the convicted person during and after serving his sentence..
Psychological resocialization is associated with overcoming social discrimination, as well as changing the convicted person’s self-image.
A qualified specialist is able to influence not only the convicted person himself, but also his relatives, to form in them a humane attitude towards the person who has stumbled.
As part of resocialization, educators in correctional institutions and psychologists are faced with a very difficult task: planning for a new person and forming in them a persistent desire to rebuild their own personality.
Psychological resocialization is based on psychodiagnostics and includes:
- psychoprophylaxis;
- psychocorrection;
- psychotherapy in crisis and critical situations.
The result of psychological resocialization of convicts is:
- repentance;
- awareness of guilt, purification;
- development of social immunity.
Such results are possible if the psychological orientation of the convicted person towards a new way of life is supported by a set of social conditions for its implementation. Otherwise, society will experience a relapse into criminal behavior.
Medical resocialization
This is a system of measures aimed at preserving and restoring the health of the convicted person, not only physical, but also spiritual, social and psychological. Every prisoner needs medical resocialization.
The criminal environment includes many mentally retarded people, neurotics, asocial psychopaths, alcoholics, drug addicts, and people with consequences of traumatic brain injuries. Many of them need not only specialist support, but also psychiatric treatment.
Any models of medical resocialization should be built on the basis of a comprehensive diagnosis (etymological, symptomatic, etc.).
And only based on the results of complex diagnostics can we propose models of resocialization (“prevention”, “correction”, “rehabilitation”, “diagnosis”, “restoration”, “development”) or a complex of them.
Each model has a specific content, includes its own forms and methods of work, a circle of interested and competent participants, and is focused on specific results.
The most effective is considered to be a comprehensive model of resocialization of convicts, implemented in conditions of interdepartmental interaction.
Resocialization of juvenile convicts
Convicted minors need help; and this is necessary not only for themselves, but also for the entire society, in order to ultimately reduce reoffending.
The process of resocialization of convicted adolescents takes place in 2 stages:
- penitentiary;
- post-penitentiary.
The main corrective measures against convicted minors are:
- education;
- educational work;
- socially useful work;
- maintaining socially useful connections.
Maintaining social connections with relatives is one of the key elements of the process of resocialization of minors; after all, before their conviction, most of them lived in dysfunctional, single-parent families, orphanages and boarding schools.
The colony social worker needs to focus on the process of preparing the family for the teenager’s return from the colony.
The second most important task of the process of resocialization of adolescents after release from educational colonies is the creation of programs to determine their professional activities, provide free housing in hostels and provide other social guarantees.
So, the resocialization of convicts in a correctional institution has its own specifics and is mostly socio-psychological in nature.
The content, forms and methods of resocialization depend on the personality characteristics of the convicted person, and the process itself requires comprehensive assistance from competent specialists.
