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Roselyne Sachiti Features Editor

The announcement by the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) yesterday that 131 of the 2 000 odd prisoners pardoned by President Mugabe in May this year had re-offended and were back in jail calls for immediate strengthening of Zimbabwe’s social safety nets and poverty alleviation strategies.

From the 131, men account for 123, while eight are women.

The ZPCS announcement also comes less than a week after police expressed concern over armed robbery cases countrywide with some of the cases believed to be committed by unrepentant criminals that recently benefited from the Presidential amnesty.

From these statistics, and those from years back, the strong insinuation is that people who are incarcerated are extremely likely to re-offend once they’re free and that most of them are regular guests of the State as they spend their lives in and out of correctional facilities.

Yet a closer look shows that only 6,55 percent committed crime, meaning over 93 percent in the May 2016 cohort behaved well.

While society may be quick to judge the cohort given amnesty by President Mugabe in May, there are many important factors often overlooked, and only known to affected re-offenders.

In Zimbabwe, most prisoners released have no safety nets to fall on and before judging them it is important to understand the nexus between crime and poverty. It is also important to adequately and properly understand how alleviating poverty can help reduce repeat crimes by such people who would have gone through rehabilitation in prison.

Poverty is caused by several factors including low labour productivity, underemployment, unemployment, structural changes in the economy, and budget cuts for anti-poverty programmes and Zimbabwe is no stranger to this.

It is no secret that in Zimbabwe, most ex-convicts are marginalised from the mainstream economic, social and political life, including their own families. This has made it harder for those released on the Presidential amnesty to cope under the current economic situation.

Jobs are hard to come by, some families and societies are usually not willing to reintegrate convicts, further worsening the plight of the pardoned people.To these offenders, committing a crime a few days after being released from prison offers an easy way in which they can obtain material goods that they cannot attain through legitimate means.

In most cases, they believe that threat or force can help them acquire even more goods, inducing them to commit violent acts such as robbery, which is the second most common crime.

In many instances, the prize that crime yields may outweigh the risk of being caught, especially given that their opportunity cost is lower than that of a wealthier person.

Because of this, many find it better to be stuck behind the walls of Chikurubi Maximum Prison than struggle to earn a decent living on the streets where they face stigma.

For them, economic freedom is behind prison walls where they get basic needs like free housing, food, education and clothing.With the country not having a single halfway house, most released inmates easily become homeless the moment they leave prison walls.

Halfway houses are residences located in the community where people are placed to either serve all or part of a sentence, or serve a period of time after being released from prison, in order to prepare to re-enter the community.

An example for the urgent need of halfway houses is a group of men and women, claiming to be beneficiaries of the Presidential amnesty, recently captured in the media staying on the banks of the Mukuvisi River in Harare. While there, they participate in all forms of vices from drug abuse to prostitution and crime.

Yet, in the developed world halfway houses have played a pivotal role in reintegrating ex-convicts into society.

For Example, in Australia some halfway houses are designed for low to medium risk offenders and others released to the project by community corrections boards who fulfil the criteria that includes those of adult age; those who have already demonstrated a capacity for self-management (e.g., trusted position within the correctional centre; attendance and/or completion of study and/or training programmes); those who have conformed to the good order requirements of the correctional centre (for example, no-internal charges over the past 12 months); those recommended for inclusion in the programme by the Community Corrections Unit at the correctional centres; those persons who, but for their homelessness, would be eligible for release into the Home Detention Programme who fulfil the above conditions.

Maybe, with funding this concept will kick-start Zimbabwe’s progress towards complete rehabilitation of ex-convicts, which may lead to lesser crimes by repeat offenders.

In May, President Mugabe pardoned more than 2 000 inmates across the country in a move that was set to de-congest national prisons and promote better living conditions.This came as President Mugabe extended the amnesty on May 23 in terms of Section 112 (1) (a) and (d) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

The amnesty freed all convicted female prisoners except those on death row or serving life sentences, leaving Chikurubi Female Prison literally empty.Only two females serving life sentences were left behind. All juveniles were also given their freedom irrespective of the gravity of their crimes as well as all prisoners with life sentences convicted on or before December 25, 1995.

President Mugabe also pardoned all prisoners sentenced to 36 months and below, should they have served a quarter of their sentences by the date of the Government Gazette dated May 23. All terminally-ill prisoners serving long terms irrespective of offences committed were released from Connemara Open Prison while inmates aged above 60 years, who had served two thirds of their sentences were also released.

All inmates convicted of stock theft were also freed. However, murder, treason, rape, armed robbery, car-jacking, sexual offences or violence-driven offences would not qualify for the Presidential pardon.Habitual criminals were not freed, while prisoners on death row, or those facing life imprisonment, also remained behind bars.

If this reflective of all the people who go to prison, what’s the rate at which they come back?” But if there are high rates of offenders in a specific release cohort — about people who are released during a given year — and how frequently they come back, then we have a problem.

With no long-term solutions, this may result in increased crime by those released on Presidential amnesty.