NEWS: E-skills training: Learning tech behind prison walls

Kajang Prison inmates at an e-skills training programme on multimedia and desktop publishing.

Many repeat offenders in prison have never learned to deal with the real world. Prihatin Sosial Malaysia has initiated a project that it hopes will give former prisoners a new lease of life, writes SHYLA SANGARAN.

We want to give inmates guidance, hope, skills and confidence upon their release from prison, says Ramanitharan.

FOR many inmates, there is something harder than prison life and that is life on the outside.

Many of those behind bars are repeat offenders who have never learned to deal with the rigours of the real world.

Re-offending cases are high mainly because former inmates are ill-equipped to enter the job market. Often, they do not possess relevant skills which could be used to earn a living.

For now, prison inmates are offered a vocational-based training programme such as batik printing/painting, handicraft making and tailoring. These courses, in most cases, are out-of-date and monotonous in nature.
“Training of prison inmates is an international issue,” says Prihatin Sosial Malaysia (Prihatin Malaysia) project manager Ramanitharan Rajaram.

A recent conference in the United Kingdom confirms that there is a greater need among the countries in the world to formulate and implement relevant training programmes for inmates.

“Currently, the prison is treated as a detention centre and not as a rehabilitation centre to reduce re-offending cases. For example, in the UK the rate of re-offending cases is 53 per cent (out of 100 released, 53 return to prison),” says Ramanitharan.

More than 80,000 prisoners in Britain are in jails and most of them have poor education. The government found half of the inmates lacked the skills needed for 96 per cent of jobs available on their release. It was by offering skills and jobs on their release that the re-offending rate dropped to almost nil.

A recent report from the Learning and Skills Development Agency in Britain also found prisoners who received training and education had a significantly lower recidivism rate one year after release.

After a computer training programme conducted at Bangkhen Women's Prison in Thailand, many former inmates are now employed in jobs that require computer skills.

The prison hired inmates to type Thai and English journal indexes using computers. Later, the prison offered graphics-related jobs such as making cards and leaflets, and image retouching. With e-skills, the inmates managed to earn about 50,000 baht (RM4,930) per month.

Prihatin Malaysia's initial interviews with prison inmates indicated that most of them wanted relevant, industrious and “cool” courses such as those related to information and communications technology (ICT).

It was against this backdrop of wanting to offer former offenders a new lease of life that Prihatin Malaysia started a project called Inno-Youth (Innovative Youth): Empowering Kajang Prison Inmates (Youths) in Digital Micro-Enterprises.

Launched in June 2007, the two-year project involving 250 Kajang Prison inmates — males aged between 15 and 39 — is an e-skills training programme which teaches participants about multimedia and desktop publishing. The aim is to enable them to become micro-entrepreneurs when they rejoin society.

The Inno-Youth project is Prihatin Malaysia's third project in a correction centre. Prihatin Malaysia has also carried out similar projects at Henry Gurney School, a school for juvenile delinquents, and Kajang Women Prison with impressive results.

“Other prisons have also requested that we conduct similar training but we are unable to oblige through lack of funds,” says Ramanitharan.

Other non-governmental organisations have initiated educational projects with juvenile prisons. For example, Shelter Home conducts classes for juvenile inmates to help them to keep up with studies.

Companies have also come forward in providing educational computer software, computer equipment and other resources.

Cisco Systems (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd is one of the strategic partners of Prihatin Malaysia. It provides free networking and essential IT training for prison instructors.

Masterskill Colleges of Nursing & Health provides scholarships for selected inmates to further their studies after their release.

“This is a milestone because it is the first time inmates get scholarships to further their studies. At the end of the day we want to show inmates that we care,” says Ramanithran.

The goal of the Inno-Youth project is to help prisoners break the cycle of repeated arrests by equipping them with skills which they can use to enter the job market on their release.

Project participants are in prison for a variety of offences — gang fight, illegal motor racing, theft, snatch theft, selling pirated digital versatile disc, blackmail, rape and murder, among others.

“We want to give them guidance, hope, skills and confidence upon their release from prison.”

The idea is to use ICT as a creative tool to prepare, train and enhance the targeted group's ability to offer niche services in multimedia and desktop publishing.

Armed with their newly acquired skills, former offenders may venture into the following desktop publishing services: designing, creating and publishing business name cards, flyers, brochures, wedding invitation cards and producing creative personalised souvenir items; digital photography (merging pictures, downloading and printing pictures from digital camera, retouching old pictures), scanning services and label printing; digital videography (transferring analogue video vertical helix scan format into CDs and burning CDs); and telecentre services (Internet, email, online bill payment, digital faxing and copying services).

“To be able to offer these services, an InnoYouth micro-entrepreneur will only need a personal computer and a colour printer,” says Ramanitharan.

They may start, for an example, an e-kiosk in shopping malls offering digital photography services, producing personalised souvenir items or instant name card printing services.

“Our past experience clearly shows positive changes in attitude once an opportunity is granted to inmates. In fact, most of the participants are unaware of their own potential especially when it comes to ICT.”

Within two weeks of training, some project participants showed remarkable ability to produce high-quality artworks (book covers, business name cards, CD-labels and manipulating digital photos).

Some project participants say that the opportunity to learn e-skills while serving their terms have made them more confident to face the outside world.