01 Dec 2020

Though there are very strong reasons to conclude that serving prisons term can deter violence, punish the offenders, prevent them from committing offences in the future, there is need to improve prisons for them to offer long lasting rehabilitation, Mr Lephogole Sebati has said. 

Mr Sebati is a psychologist, for Francistown State Prison offering counselling to remand inmates,convicts; both  serving long or short term sentences and to those on death row.

Because prisons in Botswana provide protective detention and correction of prisoners by effective rehabilitation and reintegration services to protect society, Mr Sebati is appealing for an improvement regarding rehabilitation process of inmates.

“We have 23 prisons and just five prison psychologists which is very worrisome number, and such is impacting badly other inmates without access to psychological services,” he said.

Mr Sebati said that he was fascinated by broken institutions hence his choice of being a prison psychologist to deal with broken inmates and seeing them being reformed, graduating and getting accepted back into their families.

“Personally I have gone through a whole lot of things growing up. I have been stabbed by thieves and have had my house emptied by thieves and yet I passionately yearn to help prisoners reform,” he said.

Mr Sebati who has been practicing in the prison service for four years now alludes that every person who commits an offence should be encouraged to seek therapy to prevent repeat offending.

“I have sat with a man who murdered three people and in a one on one session, he confided that had he not been severely punished and treated like a monster in his first incarceration, he would have not gone and killed the other two deceased while on bail.

He said in his first murder case, he was at a point of realising his guilt, however society and prison walls did not give him the chance to rectify his mistake, created no room for change, but instead was punished even more.

Today, this man really appreciates therapy sessions, it has made him acknowledge, deal with guilt and judgements,” he said.

He added that, tackling mental health issues in prisons was a necessity and that perpetrators needed to be taught to use mental focus to solve conflicts and by seeking counseling and not by killing one another.

Mr Sebati said perception has been created about prisons being a bad and frightening place, hence it becomes hard for perpetrators to integrate back into the society because society discriminates and judges them.

He said at times, during a time when a perpetrator was attempting to repent, the police and prison officers send wrong signals to the public; depicting prisoners as beasts during escorts, which he said needed to be rectified.

Mr Sebati said that it was important to educate the society that the primary aim of sending one to jail was not only to punish, but to re-tool and develop their character while in custody. He said that people put in jails are not physically ill but mentally disoriented and need realignment.

He said the scarcity of tackling mental health issues and counseling does not only affect prisons but was a nationwide challenge.’

He said because people were not educated on the importance of counseling, Batswana who lost their loved ones to murders still tie their healing process to execution of murderers, which was a wrong belief. “During murder cases you will often hear people say that for them to heal is when the perpetrator is hanged,” he said.ends