Top lawyer Tererai Mafukidze has said the continuity of criminal activities across Zimbabwe’s provinces was a reflection of how the country’s prisons have failed to rehabilitate prisoners.
He also blamed the society for failing to reintegrate prisoners into society thereby feeding their appetite to be repeat offenders.
Responding to questions during an Amnesty International workshop on the death penalty last week, Mafukidze said the vicious cycle of prisoners going back to jail soon after their release was not a new phenomenon in the country.
“Our laws provide a penalty for a certain crime, if someone is given for example a minimum of 10 years in prison and they come out without rehabilitation, it happens all the time because some of the time our facilities fail to correct behaviour.
“Sometimes it’s the failure of our prison system. A person comes out and they have no means of income; they are good at robbery for instance and there is an opportunity most likely leading them back to the crime scene,” he said.
Mafukidze said putting people behind bars for a long period in the hope that they will reform is not a solution.
“Time in itself might even make them more and more riled by the prison system. I must accept that there is a certain category of prisoners which must be put away for a long time like serial killers.
“There are limitations the prison has. Some people come out worse and some in fact form gangs within prisoners so that they perform organised crime when they are released from prison.”
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He, however, said there were some prisoners who reformed after incarceration.
“Prison is a lot of work and society also needs to play its part. Society sometimes rejects them so all that they have as a family constitutes other criminals they met in jail,” he said.
The Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services has since highlighted the economic challenges it is facing which are limiting its ability to rehabilitate prisoners and appealed to the community to partner it.
