KOTA KINABALU: The community should take a leap of faith and give opportunities to ex-convicts or those on parole to work and live among them, said the Prisons Department.
Its deputy director-general Datuk Ibrisam Abdul Rahman said for these people to recover from their mistakes and start over, jail time alone would not be enough.
“They have to be able to get out of prison and live normally once again, and this is where the community can play a part to assist them,” he said during a career carnival between people on bond or parole and employers at the State Prisons Department here yesterday.
He said these people would not be able to change and move on if the community continued to stigmatise them and refuse to give them a chance.
Ibrisam said the department had programmes to help these prisoners integrate with the outside community.
Such programmes, he added, included parole and corporate smart internships (CSI), where individuals who passed a physical and mental assessment would get a chance to work outside the prison with supervision.
He said such programmes were also to prepare future employers to have confidence in hiring ex-convicts or people on parole.
“If we save them by gradually allowing them to get back out there and earn a decent living, they save us by first cutting down on government costs to feed and house them in prison and secondly by allowing them to contribute economically through work and spending,” he said.
Ibrisam said this would also reduce congestion in prison.
“Therefore, we as a community should try to accept them and help them instead of continuing this stigma against former prisoners.
“We hope that more businesses will be willing to work with the Prisons Department on CSI programmes to create a more caring society,” he added.
Earlier, several former inmates related their experiences of how the parole and CSI programmes had benefited them.
There were also some employers who shared how taking a risk by hiring parolees and later rehiring them as their staff helped both their companies and the workers have a new life.
