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1.2. Motivation for undertaking the study
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(extended) families.
The dominant question asked by the female prisoners was: “Everyone says that prisons are for men, how am I going to explain my being imprisoned?” The inability of the researcher to provide them with a satisfactory answer ultimately what led her to undertake this study.
1.2.2. Academic motivation
Given the above question posed by female prisoners, the available sources were examined for potential answers, but it was found that this area had been largely neglected by scholars. The work of Sithembiso Ngubane (2007) is the closest example to this study.
While Ngubane’s study proposes that educational programmes be provided in prisons as a way of rehabilitating prisoners, it fails to differentiate between the needs of male and female prisoners. The intention behind this work will be to go beyond Ngubane’s perspectives and give critical reflections on the specific experiences of female ex- prisoners. This particular focus is necessitated by the deep and wide gender imbalances experienced in Zimbabwean society.2 These gender imbalances are felt in all aspects of life: social, psychological, economic and educational. This necessitates an exploration of the factors underpinning this imbalance. The constructed gender identity that defines women (and men) in a particular way leads to specific expectations and practices in daily life that disadvantage women and favour men. Gender identity is constructed through religio-cultural factors, and to understand this identity, it is necessary to examine those factors which led to its formation.
Throughout this entire thesis runs an awareness that gender identity impacts most acutely upon female ex-prisoners. In general the cultural norms and gender stereotypes do not see women as capable of committing crime (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2008:22). Hence, once labelled as a criminal, women are completely lost to shame and hence “women in prison experience an unparalleled sense of isolation” (Mary Dodge and Mark R. Pogrebin 2000:43). As observed by Padel and Stevenson (1988:192), many female ex-prisoners have to start afresh to make new relationships as their relatives do not want to identify with them. The female prisoners fear stigmatisation and
2 § 1.1. above
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discrimination, coupled with economic challenges that are also culturally and gender based.
It is this complex relationship between gender and culture that must be attended to if a comprehensive rehabilitation programme for female former prison inmates is to be achieved.
Furthermore this study will examine current rehabilitation theories3 in chapter six and will suggest that rehabilitation programmes currently in place in Zimbabwe are found to be lacking from the African women’s perspective as they do not address the issue of gender as experienced in the Zimbabwean context. James McGuire (2002:250) states that
“ideal rehabilitation” is achieved through applying educational strategies and giving social support that addresses problems which are linked to an individual’s needs. This view sees rehabilitation as constituting awareness building of the structural oppression of women because in most cases the woman in prison is not aware of the complex patriarchal forces that oppress her. The female prisoner thinks she is in prison because she has committed a crime. She does not critically engage with the gender and cultural fetters that have placed her into this cycle of bondage. Moreover, effective rehabilitation requires that the patriarchal context in which the female ex-prisoners will find themselves upon release needs to be taken into account in all phases of the rehabilitation and reintegration process.
This study will use the definition of patriarchy as proposed by Rakoczy (2004:18) which states that it is an “ideology, a way of thinking, feeling and organizing human life which legally, politically, socially and religiously enforces male dominance and power.” This definition is appropriate because it goes beyond the household to embrace the public structure which upholds the subordination of women.
The current work brings new knowledge in that it incorporates socio-religious, cultural and gendered perspectives, within a feminist pastoral care context. The process of rehabilitation and reintegration is a pastoral or spiritual responsibility, as has been confirmed in recent work on pastoral care (Ramsay 2004:3). Such pastoral care works toward the empowerment of ex-prisoners, who have been excluded, dehumanised, marginalized, and disenfranchised (2004:82) so that they can be restored to their communities with dignity and the future with hope. The academic motivation behind this
3 The self-determination theory of needs, the good lives theory, transformative theory, deterrence theory
and the hardening of the prison regime, social learning theory and the healthy institutional environments theory will be examined.
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study is then to propose first an approach to rehabilitation that is based on an African feminist pastoral care paradigm, and second to suggest a programme of rehabilitation, based on this same paradigm, while taking from the existing rehabilitation theories and programmes, in particular faith-based programmes, what is deemed to be useful and effective.
Existing literature helped to set the research focus for this study. The question of rehabilitation was drawn together with feminist theological theories and methods, as analysed through the lens of the experiences of female ex-prisoners who are linked with Prison Fellowship Zimbabwe, ZACRO/Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender, and the Chikurubi Female Prison. The proposed African feminist pastoral care approach and method of rehabilitation that emerged from this process is a unique contribution for further study in the rehabilitation of female ex- prisoners.
1.3. Problem statement and objectives of the study