Gruesome life after prison

The idea of going to prison is scary. Having your freedom taken away is frustrating and life behind bars is indeed no child’s play. However being released from prison is equally frightening. One would think that leaving prison and regaining freedom would be exciting but the hidden truth is that most ex convicts face a lot of challenges as they try to reintergrate into society.

Most people face a lot of stigma after being released from prison. They struggle to get jobs as most companies are hesitant to employ people with previous criminal records. Ex convicts therefore end up fending for their families in the most painful ways ever, if not going back to crime again. Another hardship is that of being accepted back into the society.

Whilst incarceration itself is mainy for rehabilitative and detterence purposes, people believe it is to merely to punish the offender. That misconception has led to former inmates being labelled as criminals even after undergoing that rehabilitative process of imprisonment. A popular belief is that a leopard does not change it’s spots therefore if one was convicted and sent to prison for say rape, after their release they would still be regarded as a rapist.

This line of thinking has resulted in most former inmates being shunned in society and failing to have equal social standing as others.

Whilst some people are generally released after serving their full sentences others get released through appeals, reviews or amnesties. The last presidential amnesty was in 2018 in which the president pardoned about 3 000 inmates. Although the general feeling would be positive after being given a new lease of life, it is easier said than done. Most people will have nowhere to go, others will find that their wives have remarried or moved away and after waking up to this realization some resort to crime again as a means of survival.

After the amnasty in 2018 one of the released prisoners was said to have stolen some items from a car on his way home and re-arrested on the very day he was released. Another recent article revealed that a man had killed his wife after being released from prison only to find her living with another man. What can be drawn from these events by others especially the youth of today is that going to prison in the first place is a no no. Crime should never be anyone’s habit