The Philippines is currently known as the country with highest jail and prison congestion rate in the world.
While our congestion rate varies from jail to jail and from month to month, (our congestion rate is highest in urban areas and during the Christmas season), on average, our congestion rate hovers around 350 percent, suggesting that a cell designed for 10 people have 45 residents living in it.
The problem of congestion is coupled with the delay in case trial hearings, making the Philippines also the country with the longest pre-trial detention in the world.
High Recidivism Rate
In a study I conducted in five Metro Manila City jails, the average length of stay for Persons Deprived of Liberties (PDLs) who were undergoing trial is 529 days.
Around 20 percent of the PDL population had stayed in jail for five years or more and were still unconvicted.
The problems of jail congestion and prolonged trial detention have direct consequences on the recidivism rate.
Based on a data I collected in a local jail in Metro Manila, the recidivism rate (defined as going back to the same jail) is around 30 percent.
There are myriad of factors why PDLs go back to jail.
A number of these released PDLs go back to jail due to failure to attend hearings, and subsequently, they jumped bail and, therefore, were rearrested.
Some of the PDLs were considered the “common suspects” of the police and they would claim, they “were framed up, again.”
A few, however, admitted they committed another crime. Accordingly, they “simply have no other options left.”
Whatever the reasons for recidivism, the data is clear: around 80 percent of the recidivists come back to jail within six months of release.
Monitoring and Referral
Thus, the key issue is post-release monitoring and referral of services for the individuals we call Persons of Restored Liberties (PRLs) on the first six months upon release.
Based on the knowledge we gathered from our Community Bail Bond Program (www.presocbb.org), three areas must be addressed upon release:
1. Housing and family acceptance,
2. Livelihood and sustenance, and
3. Peer and community influences.
Housing and family acceptance is the most important. PRLs need places to sleep; otherwise, they would hangout with their friends or live in the streets. Thus, it is very important that the jail and prison authorities need to release the PRLs to their families or the barangays where the PRLs live.
While family members are eager to receive a newly released member of the family, after a few months, these PRLs must be able to stand on their own feet. They must find employment and develop a mechanism for livelihood and self-sustenance. Otherwise, financial and familial strains will accumulate, which may induce to the PRLs to revert back to old ways.
Finally, peer and community influences must be monitored. A number of PRLs were negatively influenced by peers and neighbors, which led them to criminal behaviors in the first place. Re-exposure to these criminogenic environments may serve as triggers that rekindle old bad habits, like drug use, petty thievery, and other vices.
These three areas must be monitored with the next six months.
Sustained Interventions
It is very important that support be given to the families of the PRLs, that PRLs are referred to agencies that provide livelihood assistance, and that PRLs are advised to stay away from deviant peers and neighbors.
These interventions must be sustained in the first six months.
Weekly phone monitoring and monthly home visitations, coupled with counseling and referrals to partner agencies, have proven to be small mechanisms that have tremendous impacts on the performance of the PRLs.
These are the little steps we implement in our Community Bail Bond program of the PRESO Inc.
Of the 21 participants released due to our program, 20 (95 percent) had been successfully reintegrated back to society as responsible members.
There are now efforts to provide seven of the participants with livelihood assistance, through our partner, the El Proveedores Foundation.
Role of Criminal Justice Actors
This model intervention could be simply copied by our criminal justice actors.
Upon release, the Philippine National Police, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, and the Bureau of Corrections must release the PDLs to the care of the Local Government Units, specifically, the Barangays.
The Barangays must have a unit that will accept release PDLs. Then, the Barangays will provide assistance in the three key areas for successful reintegration. If these are successfully done, we can truly reduce the recidivism rate from 30 percent to as low as 5 percent.
This will reduce the current national jail population from 135,000 to as low as 22,500 PDLs, which is the current capacity of the BJMP jails.
This will not only reduce the cost of running our jails and prisons, it will also tremendously increase our public safety.
Photo Credit: Mr. John Paul Caelen
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