Support inmates’ training initiative
THIRTY-two prisoners were among the over 1,000 students who graduated at Makerere University Business School ( MUBS) on Friday.
THIRTY-two prisoners were among the over 1,000 students who graduated at Makerere University Business School ( MUBS) on Friday.
The inmates studied under a programme initiated by the MUBS and the Uganda Prisons authorities in 2005. This is one of the measures taken to transform prisons from penal-custodial to a correctional service, according to the commissioner general of prisons, Johnson Byabashaija.
On his part, MUBS principal Wasswa Balunywa said the school seeks to equip inmates with leadership and entrepreneurship skills so that they become responsible citizens when they are released after serving their sentences.
This is a very good initiative that the Government should support with the necessary funding. Prisons are not supposed to be merely punitive, they are also supposed to be reformative, to ensure that the inmates do not go back to the dangerous world of crime when they get out.
Unfortunately, the prisons in Uganda have, for a long time, been seen more as penal-custodial and much less as correctional. There is a widely held view in Uganda that prisoners leave the prisons as more hardened criminals.
This makes their re-integration in society more difficult, and probably explains why some of them face rejection and stigmatisation and eventually return to their old criminal habits.
The MUBS initiative to teach inmates leadership and entrepreneurship skills is a move in the right direction.
The initiative should also be expanded to other prisons so that more inmates can benefit. But this can only be achieved if other educational institutions, both private and public, accept to support it.
There is also need for a paradigm shift from the mentality that inmates cannot be transformed into useful citizens. Yes, inmates can be transformed.
The inmates studied under a programme initiated by the MUBS and the Uganda Prisons authorities in 2005. This is one of the measures taken to transform prisons from penal-custodial to a correctional service, according to the commissioner general of prisons, Johnson Byabashaija.
On his part, MUBS principal Wasswa Balunywa said the school seeks to equip inmates with leadership and entrepreneurship skills so that they become responsible citizens when they are released after serving their sentences.
This is a very good initiative that the Government should support with the necessary funding. Prisons are not supposed to be merely punitive, they are also supposed to be reformative, to ensure that the inmates do not go back to the dangerous world of crime when they get out.
Unfortunately, the prisons in Uganda have, for a long time, been seen more as penal-custodial and much less as correctional. There is a widely held view in Uganda that prisoners leave the prisons as more hardened criminals.
This makes their re-integration in society more difficult, and probably explains why some of them face rejection and stigmatisation and eventually return to their old criminal habits.
The MUBS initiative to teach inmates leadership and entrepreneurship skills is a move in the right direction.
The initiative should also be expanded to other prisons so that more inmates can benefit. But this can only be achieved if other educational institutions, both private and public, accept to support it.
There is also need for a paradigm shift from the mentality that inmates cannot be transformed into useful citizens. Yes, inmates can be transformed.