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Prevention or Re-imprisonment?
June 2007
This was the unambiguous question posed by the organisers
of the EQUAL Policy Forum on (Ex)-offenders that was held in Warsaw, on 21
and 22 June 2007. During these two days, representatives from EQUAL
Managing Authorities, National Support Structures and Development
Partnerships were joined by representatives
of criminal justice and penal systems, employers, educationalists and
non-governmental organisations. Together they concentrated on ways of taking
forward the successful approaches to reintegration that have been pioneered
by EQUAL.
Reviewing Related Developments
In welcoming the 220 delegates, Grażyna Gęsicka,
Minister of Regional Development in Poland, referred to the 121 EQUAL
Development Partnerships that had received more than 170m € from the
European Social Fund. She indicated that the Policy Forum was part of a
European Mainstreaming Platform that had begun with an Exchange Event in
Lisbon at which some of these DPs had helped to prepare the programme for
Warsaw.
An attentive audience for the opening plenary session
The Minister was joined in this Plenary by two other Polish
colleagues. Beata Kempa, Secretary of State at the
Ministry of Justice, gave a very detailed presentation of the structure of
the Polish Prison Service and how it had used EQUAL to improve the
resettlement support that could be offered to (ex)-offenders. Then, Anna
Kalata, Minister of Labour and Social Policy, explained how the Public
Employment Services were actively collaborating in these types of
resettlement programmes.
These Polish experiences were contrasted with
developments in Germany and Italy. Uwe Döring, the
Minister of Justice, Labour and European Affairs in Schleswig-Holstein
outlined how EQUAL had brought together seven Länder in the
"RESO-Northern Alliance", which is a structured framework for
cooperation between the administrations of justice in the reintegration of
offenders. He also emphasised the need for cross-governmental cooperation
between ministries of education, labour and justice if the European debate
initiated by EQUAL was to be concluded successfully.
Carmella Cavallo, who is Head of the Juvenile Justice Department at the
Italian Ministry of Justice, reported on the services that are available to
young offenders aged 14 to 18. She highlighted the fact that there is now
increased use of mediation or probation in Italy and that one recent
experiment has been the introduction of cultural mediators to work with
foreign offenders.
Commission representatives Peter Stub Jorgensen and Thomas Ljungquist flanked by Carmella Cavallo from Italy
The Policy Forum also heard about
some European, as distinct from national, initiatives. Thomas Ljungquist,
a Principle Administrator in the European Commission's DG Justice, Freedom
and Security, reviewed recent proposals related to the cross-border
supervision of suspended and conditional sentences. These proposals also
covered alternative sanctions and pre-trial supervision measures. In
addition, Peter Stub Jorgensen, Director of Directorate B of DG
Employment, spoke about some of the achievements of EQUAL. He stressed that
"coordinated approaches are of fundamental importance to the successful
re-integration of offenders and there has to be close communication and
collaboration between the prison and the outside world." He then added
"the partnership principle of EQUAL has produced many positive examples
of such cooperation involving ministries of justice,
employment, education, health and social security, major NGOs, employers'
and trade union organisations and, at local level, organisations
representing offenders, their families and their victims are also
involved."
The Issues for
Discussion
That afternoon and the following
morning were spent in Panel Sessions, which considered EQUAL's achievements
and how they could be extended. The themes for the panels were:
- The Effectiveness of an Holistic Approach
to Re-socialisation;
- Prison Innovation: Changing Roles and
Building Bridges;
- Learning across Borders: The Benefits of
Transnational Cooperation.
On the first day the focus was more
on practice with each panel receiving presentations from two DPs. In the
second session, the panels attempted to consider these good practices
through a "policy lens." In addition, the panels looked at European
level recommendations for the re-integration of (ex)-offenders.
These had come from the Exchange Event in Lisbon when participants
had felt that the process of mainstreaming EQUAL approaches could be
enhanced by such recommendations. The
29 recommendations that they produced are
grouped under the following six headings:
- Successful re-integration of (ex)-offenders requires a case
management approach from arrest, through the period of imprisonment, to the
time of release and beyond;
- All prisoners should have the opportunity of engaging in training and
educational programmes that will increase their employability;
- Having a job is the most important factor in preventing re-offending
so more efforts are required to engage both public and private employers and
to explore other forms of job creation;
- Attention must also be given to other aspects of the lives of (ex)-offenders
[housing, health family life etc.] if re-integration is to be successfully
achieved;
- There is an urgent
need to promote change in
prisons and to foster a culture of innovation and
feedback in order to support cooperation with external agencies and
developmental action;
- The developments that have been pioneered in, and through, EQUAL
should be consolidated.
The Outcomes
Panel Reports showed that in terms of consolidating the
results of EQUAL, some mainstreaming is on the way, as during the
next programming period of 2007-2013 the ESF Operational Programmes will
finance (ex)-offenders projects in almost every Member State. However, a
plea was made for the construction and support of a Pan-European network
bringing together projects and European organisations working with
(ex)-offenders to ensure that all the aspects - social, vocational, legal
and educational - would be covered in a concerted attempt to improve
European and Member State policies and practices for the resettlement of
(ex)-offenders. In terms of the third step in the EQUAL European
Mainstreaming Platform, which is establishing a Community of Practice, it
was noted that the
Knowledge Portal established by the German BABE DP is already collecting
and updating relevant national and European experience and making this
experience easily accessible. All of the Panels were broadly supportive of
the European level recommendations and attention was drawn to the need to
promote a greater involvement of both public and private employers through
incentives and by raising the awareness of middle management about the
business case for the employment of ex-offenders.
A dance group from the Warsaw-Grochow prison provides a welcome break from the discussions
In the closing session, Piotr Stronkowski Deputy
Director of the Department for ESF Management at the Ministry of Regional
Development, who had coordinated the organisation of the Policy Forum, asked
three representative stakeholders for their comments on the Panel Reports
and the Recommendations. Paweł Nasiłowski, Deputy General
Director, Central Board of Prison Service indicated that EQUAL had already
been instrumental in the drafting of a new law in Poland that enabled
individuals to serve their sentences by undertaking socially valuable work
within local communities. David Cragg, Regional Director of the Learning and
Skills Council in England proposed a two pronged approach with one firmly
rooted in policies for multi-agency and cross-ministerial cooperation that
can result in systemic change and the other geared to creating effective
support networks and tools for practitioners. The last speaker, Gudrun
Tolzmann, Head of Division Prison and Probation in the German Federal
Ministry of Justice was very strongly in favour of sending the
Recommendations to the Council of Europe, as she believed that the Council
could act in this area and was also interested in improving conditions for
(ex)-offenders.
The ideas and results of the Policy Forum will be
discussed in greater detail at forthcoming conferences including the
50th Anniversary of the European Social Fund, in Potsdam on 28/29 June,
an event entitled Education and Training for Offenders organised by the
Belgian French and German speaking Community on 2 October and a
Workshop on EQUAL and (Ex)-offenders that will be held on 9 October, as part
of DG Regio's series of Open Days (see
2006 programmee). These results will also be considered at the final
meetings of a number of strong EQUAL Transnational Partnerships that will
take place over the next months. In addition, European prison and probation
journals have already published EQUAL outcomes and so these are also being
debated by other European networks and organisations. Finally, to end on a
practical note, the existing Knowledge Portal will shortly be transferred
and integrated into a wider European dimension, thereby providing the basis
of the Community of Practice.
Presentations
made during the EQUAL Policy Forum :
http://www.policyforum2007.equal.pl/en/documents/
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