Through the project (Towards the rehabilitation and social reintegration of prisoners in society with a focus on women prisoners), funded by the Drosos Foundation , which Life Foundation for development and community reintegration provides its services for psychological rehabilitation of prisoners among a number of other activities associated with the system of life for rehabilitation and community integration For those who have been released, the Foundation has held induction sessions on the stigma and social rejection of the cases that deal with them, which foreshadows the return of these persons to the crime.
Where stigma is generally known as attach unwanted labels to a person by others in a way that deprives him of social acceptance or the support of others because he is a different person from the rest of the individuals in society. This difference lies in a characteristic of his physical, mental, and psychological or a social characteristic, which makes him feel the lack of psychological and social imbalance, that’s the sixth goal of the project, which states “raising the awareness of the community to reduce the stigma associated with imprisonment, especially prisoners women.”
Definition of stigma ,
Types of stigmas:
- Stigma (social) stigma as a social problem
- The effect of stigma on the Stigmatized
The stigmatization concept of Joffman’s Labeling theory appeared in his book “stigmatization” in 1963, which refers to the inferior relationship that deprives an individual of social acceptance.
Types of Stigmas:
The most important social stigma images and patterns can be identified as follows:
- Physical stigma: It is associated with physical disability, which is caused by a deficit or deficit in the motor system which occurs as a result of cerebral palsy or polio or amputation of the limbs due to illness or accident that leads to bone or joint deformity or marked atrophy in the body muscles These factors may be genetic or acquired.
- Mental stigma: It is associated with mental weakness or mental retardation, which leads the individual to the inability to confront the social environment in which the individual lives.
- Sensory stigma: They are some people who have deficiencies in one of the senses, especially the senses of hearing and sight
- Language Stigma: It is associated with the defects of language and speech
- Racial stigma: It is associated with differences in race, country, and religion within a single society. The racial discrimination that once existed in the United States is the largest evidence of the dominance of ethnic differences in many societies.
The criminal stigma is the process that attributes the mistakes and sins of the moral decline of people in society, describing them with repugnant qualities or attributes that bring them shame or raise rumors.
Stigma (social) as a social problem:
Stigma is the process that attributes the mistakes and misdeeds of moral degeneration to people in society, calling them repugnant qualities or traits that bring shame or rumor. Stigma refers to more than just a formal act by society towards a member who has misbehavior or to reveal any significant difference from the rest of the members.
Stigma remains a social (social) history of any criminal individual, leading many criminologists to stress that punitive measures taken against criminals in their legal and social forms lead to complete separation between these criminals and society. The scope of the crime is that severe and cruel penalties lead to a reciprocal reaction between the criminal and the society. The society stands firm and firm towards the criminal through the punishment and the stigmatization of the criminal. The criminal tries his best to preserve his criminal identity as a result of this legal and social punishment Which it has strictly applied community representatives in the legislative bodies that formulate such laws and to reject the sense of community non-self for its existence within the framework of normal social life and his paste feature (stigma) person before.
The impact of stigma on the stigmatized(the danger of stigmatization on the individual and society):
The stigma is not only in its ability to implant depression and anxiety in the heart of the hypothetical, it also works on the collapse of morality and self-confidence and then the weakness and stagnation and inability to creativity or even work, but the major crisis of stigma that affects the mind of the designer and his feelings and behavior and make him act on As expected by the strong society and this is what we can call it “drink stigma”
If the crime itself is a serious social phenomenon that harms the collective feeling and threatens the interests of the group, the phenomenon of return to crime is a greater danger and a deeper root problem. The criminal who is constantly in the crime without finding the methods of punishment or the methods of reform to deter or correct him Is more dangerous to society than a criminal who criminalizes only once and then is soon to adapt again to society and subject to its systems and laws.
It is true that once a prisoner is released from prison, he faces society with multiple problems, social, psychological and economic. And is in the most need for those who take his hand and help him to overcome the gap between his life in prison and the life of the free society, which stands at its doors. If found this aid from the community, adapt and merge with it.
But if he finds trouble and troubles him, finds disillusionment with the environment, evils and repudiation of society, and closes his way to honest ways of living, we can expect him only a blatant hostility to social systems and standards and his quick return to criminality to avenge himself for society’s neglect and disdain for himself.
If the primary purpose of a reformist policy is to bring the prisoner back to normal and integrate it into society, the way to achieve that goal must be to try to avoid it so as not to return to crime.
The difficulty of the problem of the adjustment of the released with the community is due to several factors, some of which are attributed to the prison, resulting in the dissociation of the culprit from the spirit of the society, its concepts and values, and its impact on the life of the prisoner in the society of all its members. Rupture, displacement, poverty, congenital disintegration and the breakdown of the family’s emotional life.
The most severe restrictions that are burdened under the burden of the majority of graduates of prisons, which were and still are a burden to adapt to the community, is attributed to the same society, which puts obstacles and legislation makes the prisoner a pariah and finds that his imprisonment should be followed by the deprivation of all or some of his civil rights, Thus ensuring that the righteous citizens do not trust him, and put before him obstacles and legal and moral barriers, which prevents him from returning to his previous work and makes the return to his former social status is almost impossible.
Therefore, the local community must be aware that it has a significant role in the return of these people to crime because of the weakness of the ability to accept these individuals after their reintegration, which constitute the focal points of the outbreak of crime and does not enhance the safety of the community that we desire.
Dina Abdulrahman Al Baqry
Walid Abdulmenem Al Damaty
Psychology Department supervisor