Portugal must create transitional houses for inmates
“Unfortunately, in Portugal, transition houses (which we distinguish from outgoing homes, for those who are already free) are not yet a reality in small-scale homes. management of security measures, in a more dynamic way”, tells DN, executive director of Reshape, which today organizes in Lisbon, with the Miguel Galvão Teles Institute, the international event Prison Insights “22 – Please Take Care of the Gap!.
These transition houses are already a reality in the Netherlands, where they are managed by the Exodus Foundation, having started out as exit houses for people who have nowhere to stay when they finish serving their sentence. In these cases, the detached houses are between 12 and 2 months after departure, from the name of transition, with residents being accounted for, in the period of departure, the time of departure or the purchase model, every day, being accounted for, in the checkout period, checkout time or purchase model. Furthermore, the financials of a transitional home are significantly lower than the costs of prison, as residents of their employment costs, earning the costs of their employment costs, bear the costs of food, transport and accommodation, paying an expense of the costs of their jobs for their vacancy in the house, thus reacquiring responsibilities and skills of managing a personal budget”, Duarte Fonseca, underlining that the recidivism rate of these houses managed by Exodus is 4.6% for those who end up in the entire program proposed in the house.
For the executive director Reshape, the transport of this experience is feasible and already very close to something similar does not have time. “Like what happened with the Covid-19 pardon law in 2020, what we imagine for Portugal is exactly who we are 24 months away from the possibility of enjoying parole, and conditionally on the transition, Our law already foresees this possibility in the form of electronic surveillance, we would like it to be foreseen in a community format, waiting for the sentence outside the prison, similar to what is already happening in France or Belgium They are normally people who have had a positive prison path. of Execution of Sentences, similar to what already happens with judicial exits, such as precarious calls, or parole”.
Few teams and many cases to follow
Currently, in Portugal, monitoring in terms of reinsertion of people leaving prison depends on the legal situation in which they find themselves. If you are still on parole, you must be accompanied by the social reintegration teams of the Directorate-General for Reinsertion and Prison Services. If you are in a situation of freedom without any restriction, there is no follow-up. “There is not much, in case it is also important to mention that the number of reins are very few for the amount of cases it follows, so the follow-up ends up being reduced and insufficient for a rein to be possible”, regrets the executive director of Reshape , with the exception of the participation of non-profit associations such as the one he directs to fill some gaps. “In ours, we have been working hard to support the Reshape Office, which has a strong focus on employability and the search for work together with our technicians, and which also supports other levels, such as documentation, essential goods, legal support, etc.”.
This scenario of need in terms of reinsertion in Portugal levaarte Fonseca states that “we still have work to do in this direction”, highlighting that “what of our people have people with whom we contact daily in prisons is that there is a lot of enormous talent within our prison children, of people who want to change their lives, but often don’t even know where to start”. “The Netherlands, for example, has an occupancy rate of its prisons of 54% and a recidivism rate of 40%. In our country there are no public data on the recidivism rate, which makes a problem that well there is a reliable diagnosis, but according to other countries with similar realities to ours, it is estimated that every six out of ten people commit crimes again after being imprisoned in Portugal. on the matter, but at the outset it is a worrying fact”.