Opinion Sur Joven

“These marginals need to be “integrated,” “incorporated” into the healthy society that they have “forsaken.” The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not “marginals”, are not people living “outside” society. They have always been “inside” — inside the structure which made them “beings for others”. The solution is not to “integrate” them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become “beings for themselves.” [1]

Reintegration or starting all over? In the case of most young convicts, the second option would be the choice given their social situation and their families’. Just by resorting to the media we may say, using a cruel irony, that prisons are the starter home for millions of poor men and women.

Thanks to the Internet, we may nowadays have better access to the harsh reality of millions of young people who are imprisoned all over the world. There is a wide range of human rights organisms, social organizations or alternative methods making information available on the injustices the convicts suffer.

Social and economic structures seem to be the starting points of all existing inequalities: Latin America has one of the widest gaps in economy (therefore, also in society, politics and education) between rich and poor sectors.

This article summarizes the problem, though not to conceal its essential causes, but due to the impossibility to treat the subject as largely as it deserves. Instead, one of its sides is analyzed: reintegration –which may also be merely called integration- by means of education. The very name is under debate already.

Education and Freedom

Verónica Sepiurka is a young Argentine woman who teaches in confinement places. She has also taught in slums. She has a Special Education degree oriented to “social infringement and maladjustment”. She first graduated in the Escuela Normal de Especialización de México (Mexican Teacher Training High School of Specialization), then she got a master’s degree in Criminology and finally returned to her homeland to start working in her field.

In her thesis, “La readaptación social a partir del trabajo y la educación” (“Social reintegration through work and education"), Verónica adopts the viewpoint of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire: “It would be convenient that education within the correctional system be based on the “liberating education” notion due to the inmate’s characteristics, although this does not actually happen in reality”. And she adds: “Education focused on imprisoned persons increases automatism and memorization, suppressing creativity, initiative, reflection and questioning”.

“I managed to teach inmates by means of games and dynamic methods; I did not use traditional education in a direct way, but in a didactic, entertaining manner”, she tells to Opinión Sur Joven on her experience as an educator. “The institution, however, does not promote the possibility to choose a different type of education, although you may give it depending on your personal training. That is, there is not an implicit order by the institution to let you choose non-traditional education”, she points out.

According to Verónica, the problem is that not many people receive education within the young or adult correctional system. “In Argentina, the problem is that education for the imprisoned is considered a benefit rather than an incentive. That is, only those with good behavior and merit credits have access to education. It is not meant just for anyone; inmates must comply with certain behavior requirements and their dangerousness is assessed”.

-Does jail reach its goal of integrating prisoners to the system?-, Opinión Sur Joven asked.
-Jail is having a punishing function rather than a re-socializing one. Attempting to re-adapt a person who lives in such terrible conditions is illogical: overcrowding, overpopulation; it’s all about money; everything is meant for the overprivileged. The Criminal Code itself fails to take poor people into account, since penalties are set in high amounts that poor people many times cannot afford paying. Thus, they have no choice but to pay for them in jail; this generates tremendous inequality.

If you are interested in this interview, click here to read the complete version

Minor voices?

Dr. Luis Agote Top Security Juvenile Correctional Facility is located in Palermo, a neighborhood in the City of Buenos Aires. Since 2002, the kids imprisoned there have been issuing their own magazine, "La vida y la Libertad” (“Life and freedom”), which may be read on the Net. [2]

In their virtual magazine, the reader encounters the raw, honest and vivid writing of the kids, who transmit fears, pains, joys and eagerness to come out from their confinement and never go back.

In one of the articles, Damián S. talks about the life of a 17-year-old young felon -his name was Victor “el Frente” Vital-, who was killed by the police when he was surrendering, terrified by the shots. After commenting on this juvenile felon’s death, the author asks himself:

“But... what can we do? Our justice keeps being fair only for a few people. I don’t know if Victor Vital is a saint, but in the book I read to write this article he seemed to have good behavior and a great heart walking along the wrong path. We know that stealing is wrong, but when you live in a place where the rich and the poor are very close to each other, the difference becomes enormous. Other people’s fortune seems to be close at hand; that’s where hunger and wealth go hand in hand". [3]

The article describes the world just as its author sees it: hurt by the violence of power, and divided by injustice and misunderstanding. Reading it is perhaps the closest we may get to the viewpoint of the prisoners, of those who have no voice in society but who nevertheless see, live and suffer the difficulties of the existing order… and then they are judged.

“So, -Damián continues- what are we to expect? How are we supposed to reintegrate? Is society going to accept us despite our having criminal records? How can we escape trigger-happy killing?”

In turn, Miguel Angel A. writes about under-aged kids who are sentenced to life imprisonment. In the article he criticizes the possibility to set such harsh sentences, stating that for said reason “the Argentine State has been reported to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on violation of rights”, since compliance with said sentences by under-aged people “straightly contradicts the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, among other rules”. [4]. The article written by Miguel Angel concludes blaming society and forcing it to acknowledge what happens to young prisoners: “But what can be done to make these rights be respected in a society where enforcing anti-constitutional rules is possible?

In the same publication, different ideas share the space; the young felons in Agote know what confinement, violence, lack of opportunities and being forgotten are about. They know it and they show it.

However, the place they’re given in society is a silent one. Their complaints and claims are not heard by the governments, let alone by the media, which stigmatize, stereotype and demonize them every time they can.

A way out

Prisoners are a part of society. In spite of it, some sectors talk about them as if they were from a different planet, born in a very distant and dangerous land; these sectors consider that those who commit a crime must be marginalized in order to solve the problem.

In their ideal worlds, all potential offenders would be imprisoned. Wouldn’t this imply that all poor people should enter the “dangerous for the order” category? Maybe they are the ones who play with the meanings of the words when talking about “reintegration” without acknowledging that prisoners were never in the plans of an unfair system that consciously leaves them behind.

Therefore, it is necessary to know what another sector has to say: a sector that needs to be heard within a system which seems to have reserved only a cell with bars for them.