Social Work Practice for Minorities Leaving Prison - Research Proposal Example

How Can Social Work Practice Address The Resettlement Needs of Black and Ethnic Minority Mothers Leaving Prison Introduction-Background Smith et al (2007) described Britain as the prison capital of Europe. As per the statistics released by the HM Prison Service, 2006, there are 78,085 men and women in the UK prisons. (Smith et al, 2007, p.1). No other European country has such a huge quantity of public staying in the prisons. Women community, especially the black and ethnic minority mothers are constitutes a substantial amount when we consider the number of UK prisoners. According to Sharp et al, (2006) this is because of the fact that BME offenders are more likely to receive longer sentences compared to white offenders for similar offences, for example, in 1998 47% of white adult prisoners had a sentence of 4 years and over, whereas, 58% of Asian adult prisoners and 63% of black adult prisoners had received such a sentence Moreover, research has shown an alarming rise in the number of women sent to prison, up to 145% in the last 5 years(Sharp et al, 2006, p.4-5). There are approximately 2.3 million Black and Minority Ethnic women in the UK, making up just fewer than 4% of the total population of the UK, and around 8% of women (Brittain et al, 2005, p.5). Many researchers have shown that black and minority ethnic women are more vulnerable to the criminal activities compared to the white because of lack of education, poverty and cultural factors. Some of these women may enter the prison as single, but return with babies. The resettlement of black and ethnic minority mothers is a big social problem in UK at present. If the resettlement of these minority groups is not done properly, they can cause even bigger social problems than the one they already received punishment. Re-offending costs for the society in UK is around £11 billion per year according to Sharp et al, (2006). They also mentioned that in April 2001, the Prison Service and DFES (then the DfEE) established a new partnership and forged links with the Youth Justice Board and Probation Service to promote coherence in the various strategies adopted to reduce re-offending and support the resettlement of offenders by giving them education and training in prison itself to develop skills needed to find a job after their release (Sharp et al, 2006, p.1). Literature Review “The ballooning prison population is making it more difficult for ex-offenders to find settled accommodation when they are released, according to the initial findings of a radical new resettlement project” (Inside Housing, 2008). North (n. d) has mentioned that by 2009, it is predicted that there will be 9000 women in custody in UK prisons (North, n.d, p.1). The integration of ex-offenders with the normal people is difficult in UK social setup. It is difficult to find shelter to the prisoners along with the normal people when they released from the prison. The criminal background will definitely haunt the ex-offenders and others may not accept them easily. The quality of the housing provided to the ex-offenders is poor which forces them to engage in criminal activities again. Ex-offenders forced to live in crowded conditions and poorly maintained buildings according to Sharp et al (Sharp et al, 2006, p.3). Allender et al (2005) have mentioned that fifty-six per cent of ex-prisoners were living in social housing in 2000. In other words, majority of the ex prisoners don’t have permanent houses of their own. They were forced to live in social houses which consist of many people of similar backgrounds. Such isolation is intolerable for the BME mothers and their children. Most of the BME mothers who committed their earlier crimes because of the circumstantial pressures. Instead of removing such circumstantial pressures, the authorities forced them to continue their lives in similar pathetic conditions as before. Their children also may be forced to lead their lives in pathetic conditions isolated from the mainstreams of the public life. North (n. d) has mentioned that women released from prison with babies face problems like homelessness, poverty, unemployment, drug misuse, and abuse. Moreover, Home Office figures show that 38% of female prisoners expect to be homeless on release. Sixty-six percent say that they were drug dependent, or drinking excessively, prior to imprisonment Resettlement into the community can be a difficult and risky time for any prisoner (North, n. d, p. 26). Most of the mothers returning from prison may not get shelter or employment and hence in every probability, they will engage in antisocial activities again and again. The black and ethnic minority mothers may face more problems compared to the white mothers returning from the prisons. At the time of imprisonment these females might be pregnant and at the time of release, they may have their own babies. In other words, most of the mothers returning from the prison may have an additional burden of having a baby with them. If social support fails to address the issues of these returning mothers and their children from jail, serious social problems may arise in UK society. It is a fact that heredity is one of the major factors in determining the behavior of a person and hence the children of mothers returning from jail may definitely have the criminal traits. Environment is another factor which determines the behavior and character development of a person. In short, children of mothers returning from the prison may have all the elements needed to become criminals and if the society fails to address their issues, they will fell in mud. Smith et al, (2007) have argued that the current UK policies with respect to prisoners’ children in criminal justice policy does not conform to the requirements of either Article 3(1) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which states that the ‘best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration’, or Article 9(i) of the UNCRC, which provides for children to maintain contact with a parent from whom they are separated. Moreover, the Government’s criminal justice policy also places it in a questionable position with respect to the European Commission on Human Rights (Article 8), which covers the right to respect for private and family life, except where interference is necessary for the prevention of disorder, crime and so on (Smith et al, 2007, p.78) Brittain et al, (2005) have argued that race relations in the criminal justice system remain a serious problem for BME women offenders. They also mentioned a survey in which more than one third of the Black women prisoners rated the race relations in prison in general as ‘poor / very poor’, and only 18% of them were satisfied with the advice given about money and benefits once they were released from prison, compared with 38% of the White women surveyed (Brittain et al, 2005, p.41). In short, in jails also the back women suffers discrimination in the dealings of the prison authorities. It is an accepted fact that whites always safeguard the interests of the whites even if they pretend to be secular in all their aspects of social life. Because of the lack of advice, care, training or education received by the black mothers in prison, they were forced to search in the night when they released from the prison. Spring,( 2006) has mentioned that the prison service and the social service can contribute heavily in the resettlement issues related to BME groups. Offering encouragement and support, training to enhance skills, help with finding housing and jobs, facilitating self-esteem housing, legal and financial advice and representation, well joined-up services that address all the complex problems women encounter, preparation for the outside world including help with further education and training, providing counseling and support, raising the awareness of society as a whole to the need to help ex-offenders get on their feet, help with childcare issues, help to combat poverty and social exclusion, talking to them as black women about their, experiences of prison, specific information for black women etc are some of the areas in which social service can help the BME groups I n general and the BME mothers returning from prisons in particular (Spring, 2006, p.19) Probation officers normally spend very little time with the offenders released from the UK prisons and in the cases of blacks; they will reduce their spending of time even further. Thus most of the problems faced by the black mothers returning from the jail will remain unnoticed. Even if the problems were noticed by the probationary officers, they will not report it properly to the authorities if the sufferer is from the black community. Sharp et al, (2006) have argued that it is useful to have probation officers from the same ethnic background as offenders in order to facilitate the ability to relate to one another (Sharp et al, 2006, p.19) Lack of funding is another major problem in tackling the issues related to black mothers returning from the UK jails. UK Government was also not much keen in allotting funds for the development of the ex-prisoners. Recession has already destroyed the back bone of the UK economy and hence the government is concentrating more on reducing the expenses in non-productive sectors. Unfortunately, the rehabilitation of the returning mothers from jails, especially the black and ethnic minority mothers is perceived as a non-productive sector by the government. Research Objectives and Research Questions This research is conducted to identify the resettlement problems faced by the black and ethnic minority mothers who leave the prisons. It is a fact that the UK society keeps distance with the criminals coming out from the prisons. In the case of blacks and ethnic minorities, these gaps are wider and it is difficult for such prisoners coming out from the prisons to live in harmony with the normal public. The black and ethnic minority mothers coming out from the prison may have some children with them and it is extremely important to protect these people with utmost care in order to avoid further serious social problems. These mothers and their children may become serious threats if the authorities or the social service personnel failed to address their issues. Fifty-seven per cent of the women released from prison in the first two quarters of 2001 were reconvicted within two years. About a third of women lose their homes while in prison. Fifteen per cent of sentenced women have previously been admitted to a psychiatric hospital and nearly 40% have tried to commit suicide. Eighty per cent have diagnosable mental health problems (Spring 2006, p.15). All these problems were caused because of the failures of the social workers and governmental agencies in tackling the resettlement problems of black and ethnic minority mothers returning from prisons. Social workers normally work for the wellbeing of the society. They always try to eradicate social evils and give assistance to the needy people. It is necessary for the UK social workers to give more attention to the issues related to the resettlement of the black and ethnic minority mothers. This research explores various methods in which the social workers can help the black and ethnic minority mothers in finding resettlement. Research Design Both qualitative and quantitative research methods will be used in this research in order to achieve research objectives. Semi-structured interviews will be used to collect the qualitative data whereas charts, diagrams and tables will be collected from the published sources to collect the quantitative data. Two way communication is possible only in direct interviews with the subjects and it will help me to devise new questions at the time of interview in order to get more insight into the topic. Qualitative methodology is an important tool in capturing what a person, especially a person from the governmental body thinks about this specific issue. These feedbacks will help me in proposing certain recommendations in creating future policies. Quantitative data is important in understanding the depth of the problem. Moreover it will help me in analyzing the past researches in this field and the results from those researches can be compared with the results I obtained from my research in order to draw final conclusions. Data Collection and Analysis Primary data will be collected from the interviews with the black and ethnic minority mothers who already left the prison and also from those who currently in the prison. I have already made agreements to conduct interviews with some of the major people working in the governmental bodies which look after the issues related to resettlement issues of people who leave the prison. Surveys and questionnaire will also be used to collect the data. Secondary data will be collected from published documents, books, journals, internet and responsible Government ministries. Primary data will give qualitative data whereas the secondary data will give both qualitative and quantitative data. The analysis and the interpretations of the data will be done based on the primary and secondary data. Time scale This research is aimed to complete within three months. I have planned to start the data collection from July 1st onwards. The first 45 days will be utilized for collecting primary data. I have planned to visit some prisons located at different parts of the country to collect the primary data directly from the black and ethnic minority mothers. Moreover, I should visit some of the black mothers who already left the prison in order to collect details about the problems they are facing in resettlement. Some of the members of the governmental bodies will also be interviewed to get more details about the future prospects in resettling the black mothers leaving from the prisons. The next 20 days will be used to collect secondary data from the published articles, books, journals and internet. The next 25 days will be used for the data analysis and also for writing the final paper. Indication of results and conclusions The results of this research might prove the inefficiency and lack of care extended towards the resettlement of black and ethnic minority mothers who return from the UK prisons by the authorities and the governmental agencies. This research may also prove the increased participation of social workers in issues related to the black and ethnic minority mothers like rehabilitation, education, employment integration into the society etc. Generally, UK authorities might be keeping double standards towards the issues related to the blacks and the white and it is more evident in the current issue researched. Lack of attention and care extended towards the issues related to blacks and ethnic minorities might question the credibility of secularism followed in UK. It is difficult to believe that a white officer take as much care that a black officer may extend towards the issues related to the blacks. So, it is better to appoint welfare officers for black community from the black ethnic group itself if the government has sincerity in their approaches towards blacks. References 1. Allender P, Brown G, Bailey N, Colombo T, Poole H & Saldana A (2005), Report on the Prisoner Resettlement and Housing Provision Research Project, Retrieved on 4 June 2010 from http://www.housingcorp.gov.uk/upload/pdf/Report_on_the_Research_Project.pdf 2. Brittain E, Dustin H, Pearce C, Rake K, Siyunyi-Siluwe M & Sullivan F (2005), Black & Minority Ethnic Women in the UK ,The Fawcett Society Retrieved on 4 June 2010 from http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/documents/BME%20Women%20in%20the%20UK.pdf  3. Inside Housing, (2008), Packed prisons make it hard to resettle Retrieved on 4 June 2010 from http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/packed-prisons-make-it-hard-to-resettle/1448351.article 4. North J (n. d), Getting it right: Services for pregnant women, new mothers, and babies in prison Retrieved on 4 June 2010 from http://www.maternityaction.org.uk/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/prisonsreport.pdf 5. Sharp D, Atherton S & Williams K, (2006), Everyone’s Business: Investigating the resettlement needs of black and minority ethnic ex-offenders in the West Midlands, Retrieved on 4 June 2010 from http://www.nbbpsg.co.uk/library/s%20Business%20Report.pdf 6. Smith R, Grimshaw R, Romeo R and Knapp M (2007), Poverty and disadvantage among prisoners’ families, Retrieved on 4 June 2010 from http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/2003-poverty-prisoners-families.pdf  7. Spring (2006), Strategy and Resource Guide for the Resettlement of Women Prisoners, Retrieved on 4 June 2010 from http://www.mediafordevelopment.org.uk/attachments/documents/resettlement%20of%20women%20prisoners.pdf Read More