Prisoners’ families facing ‘life sentences’ of their own

Prejudice and narrow-mindedness remained the biggest obstacles in the road to rehabilitation for prisoners – but also for their families on the outside, according to the chairperson of the Mid-Dlam Ghad-Dawl foundation.

The foundation’s aims are to help prisoners, former prisoners, and their families.

Chairperson George Busuttil told MaltaToday that once released from prison, many former inmates still found it very difficult to find gainful employment and to gain unconditional acceptance from loved ones, family members, friends and society at large.

He said that the stigma of having been in prison pursued former inmates even after having served their sentence, while their families very often have to face the same discrimination and ridicule while their loves ones serve their prison sentences and afterwards.

Busuttil said that many families of persons serving a sentence at Corradino Correctional Facilities refused to ask for help because they feared being ridiculed or ostracised by their community.

“There are many women who will refuse to ask their friends or neighbours for help, with even the smallest problems, for fear of having them learn that their son, husband or relative is in prison,” he said.

Over the weekend, Mid-Dlam Ghad-Dawl published a report it commissioned – together with Prisms, which works to empower young people with the skills and tools for personal and social growth – on the impact of incarceration on an inmate’s family.

The report, ‘Locked Out: The Families of the Incarcerated’, explored what relatives of inmates went through while their loved ones served their sentences, as well as examining the perspective of prisoners themselves, volunteers working with prisoners, and prison wardens.

Family members of 20 of the inmates – spouses, children, parents or siblings – were interviewed, providing the most poignant and relevant insights into the hardships faced by the families of inmates.

One woman spoke about her father, who has been in prison for the last 16 years, since she herself was only 16 years old.

“You try to help him, help your mother … I did a lot in 16 years, fighting by myself, and not because I never needed outside help, but because I never wanted to ask for help,” she told researchers.

“You need to be wary of a lot of people, whom you talk to, because then you need to grow up quickly and, very often, these events teach you stuff.”

The report identifies the dire financial situation of the many families of prisoners as being the most urgent and pressing concern for many of them.

A pensioner described the difficulties he faced in trying to support his son in prison financially, as well as himself, on his meagre pension.

“I do not expect them to open the prison doors and let everybody out, because we know that people need to pay for their mistakes,” he said. “But when they’re given a sentence, they also get a very big fine … and we pay the fine for him.”

Busuttil said that – besides the fines imposed by the courts – many prisoners also found themselves in debt of thousands of euros for legal fees, including court administration fees and, even more so, lawyers’ fees.

He said this financial burden was then passed on to the families of the prisoners, adding to their other concerns, including the quality of information passed on to them by the authorities, the pressure on relationships, victimisation and – if children are involved – negotiating a parental relationship with a parent behind bars.

Busuttil explained that the foundation tried to facilitate and address these concerns as much as possible but stressed that much still needed to be done to ensure that families and relatives of prisoners did not end up themselves ‘sentenced for life’ because of the heavy socio-economic hurdles thrown at them.

As part of its Christmas activities this year, the foundation organised a Christmas Market in front of the Corradino Correctional Facility, which was open to the public until yesterday.

The market included a number of stalls selling a variety of products, including plants, food and drinks, sweets, toys and hand-crafted souvenirs of Malta that are painted and finished by prisoners, who get paid full rates by the company that produces and distributes them.

Busuttil said he hoped the report helped to direct further debate on how to the assist families of inmates as they tried to come to terms with their relative’s incarceration, financial woes and society’s widespread cynicism and discrimination against current and former inmates and their families.