In the justice system, reintegration refers to the process of the reentry into society of people that have been in prison. The reintegration process involves the rehabilitation and social integration of current and former prisoners. Oftentimes, people who are in prison for an extended period of time become institutionalised and struggle when living outside of the prison environment. Therefore, access to facilities is needed to allow them to make a smoother transition to normalcy and return to their families, their communities, and wider society. The Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) believes that the two most significant elements of reintegration are; preparing the prisoner during the course of their sentence, and coordinating support for the prisoner post-release. 

Reintegrating current and former prisoners into their communities and into wider society is an essential factor in achieving some of the aims of criminal justice such as deterrence and rehabilitation. Reintegration benefits prisoners and former prisoners on an individual level while also benefiting society collectively. Reintegration can be advantageous to prisoners as it provides them with the opportunity to become rehabilitated and lead a more constructive and conventional life post-release. It allows them to benefit from social inclusion in communities where they may otherwise be socially ostracised or stigmatised due to their history of incarceration. Reintegration also benefits society as a whole as it is proven to lower the rate of recidivism. It further benefits society by helping to tackle harmful social and economic issues such as the poverty cycle and does this by providing external intervention to a vulnerable group that are operating within a society that creates obstacles in their rehabilitation process. 

Reintegration benefits prisoners and former prisoners on an individual level while also benefiting society collectively.

One of the major problems currently facing prisoners in their attempts to reintegrate into society is a lack of available mental health facilities, both in prison and in the community. According to the Mental Health Commission (MHC), Irish prisoners are not given the same access or the same quality of mental health facilities in comparison to the general population. The Irish Penal Reform Trust showed in a submission to the Joint Committee on Justice that the prevalence of prisoners with severe mental illness is four times that of the general population. They also noted that prisoners with severe mental illnesses who require a transfer to the Central Mental Hospital (CMH) are experiencing a delay due to the waiting list, with between 18-34 people awaiting transfer each year since 2017. Many of the people who require a transfer to the CMH need it due to untreated mental illness in the prison in the first place. There also exists a mental-health crisis within Ireland in which private mental-health facilities are unaffordable and access to public mental-health facilities is severely limited due to long waiting lists. For this reason, there is also a lack of post-release facilities for prisoners who require access to mental health services to avoid reoffending. 

The Irish Penal Reform Trust showed in a submission to the Joint Committee on Justice that the prevalence of prisoners with severe mental illness is four times that of the general population.

Another major problem facing prisoners on the road to reintegration is the lack of education facilities. According to the Central Statistics Office, as of May 2019 the highest level of education for 57 percent of offenders was the Junior Certificate or less - implying that a failure to engage in education is already a deep-rooted issue before people even reach the prison service. Further establishing this problem is the statistic obtained from the Irish Prison Service (IPS) which states that approximately 70 percent of prisoners have a problem with literacy. Despite the IPS offering educational programmes to prisoners, only 31.2 percent of prisoners were participating in these programmes in November 2021. Basic education programmes include classes in literacy, numeracy, and English as a second language, and the prisoners can also engage in programmes such as creative arts, technology, life skills, and healthy living. Access to these educational programmes could improve the prisoners' likelihood of success in obtaining employment post-release. 

One of the most important factors in rehabilitating prisoners is the ability to provide them with accommodation post-release in the event that they have nowhere to go. Homelessness is a significant barrier that can inhibit a person's reintegration into society. Most people who spent time in prison will return to the same community that they lived in prior to their imprisonment, and according to IPRT, prisoners are 23 times more likely to come from and return to a seriously deprived area, which are in turn more likely to be exposed to criminal behaviour such as drug-taking, drug-dealing, and gang violence, which can result in a higher chance of reoffending. Oftentimes, a former prisoner's lack of secure accommodation results in them being ineligible to be considered for post-release rehabilitation programmes such as The Bridge Project due to the challenging nature of these programmes often conflicting with the instability and chaotic nature of homeless people's lives. 

Prejudices, discrimination, stigma, and many legal barriers make it very difficult for former prisoners to gain employment.

Another important factor in assisting prisoners with their reintegration into wider society is providing them with employment opportunities. This is an integral step towards successful reintegration as not only does this allow the former prisoners to earn an income for themselves, but it also enables them to engage in a structured daily routine and social interaction. This further encourages the former prisoners to take measures to lead a constructive and law-abiding life and avoid reoffending. Prejudices, discrimination, stigma, and many legal barriers make it very difficult for former prisoners to gain employment. IPRT proposed that the solution to this issue is to create more expansive and effective spent convictions regimes. There is currently a bill on its way through the Dáil relating to spent convictions which are convictions that do not need to be disclosed, provided the offender meets the correct criteria. It allows the former offender to essentially 'wipe the slate clean' after a specific period of time, depending on the nature of the crime. Another way to help former prisoners to gain employment would be to remove the check box that asks if applicants have a criminal record from employment applications - this is currently being advocated by an American campaign called Ban the Box. Maintaining a more expansive system for spent convictions or disallowing check boxes for criminal records on employment applications would ensure that former prisoners are not disproportionately disadvantaged in terms of employment, as well as in other aspects of post-release life such as education, travel and accommodation.

In order to reduce the effect that the aforementioned barriers have on prisoners and former prisoners' ability to effectively reintegrate into society, it is important that Ireland moves away from harsh punitive incarceration that is widely used in the United States, which has the highest rate of incarceration globally. Ireland should instead move towards a model of rehabilitative incarceration similar to the one that is applied in Norway which currently has the lowest rate of recidivism globally at just 20 percent. Norway's open prison system, which makes up 40 percent of their prisons, places a heavy focus on normalcy, with the objective of keeping prisoners' lives as similar to outside living conditions as is reasonably possible. The opportunities provided by Norwegian prisons in education, the country's rehabilitative approach to justice, and their commitment to keeping life for prisoners as normal as possible are to what researchers accredit the low recidivism rate. If Ireland were to follow in Norway's footprints, Ireland could potentially decrease its most recently-reported recidivism rate of 47 percent within one year of release by adopting a more rehabilitative approach to incarceration.

By Aisling Corcoran

All ideas, beliefs, and opinions presented are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Eagle.