Role of Religious Interventions in the Reintegration of Prisoners: A Case Study of Selected Jails of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Prisoners’ reintegration is the core concept of almost all penal systems in the world. One of the potent tools to ensure prisoners’ reintegration is effective network of religious services within prisons. This paper aims at exploring the role of religious interventions in the reintegration of prisoners with specific focus on Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) jails.  Six high profile jails---Central Jail Peshawar, Haripur, Bannu, and District Jail Timergara, Mardan and Kohat of KP were purposively selected. Mixed methodology, more specifically concurrent triangulation technique, was used to collect and analyze the data. Of all 261 respondents, 250 comprised of jail inmates (under-trial and convicted adults and juveniles male prisoners) were randomly selected within the six jails of the province and interviewed through semi-structured questionnaire. The remaining 11 respondents, purposively selected and interviewed through interview-guide included jail officials of all the selected prisons (6 in numbers) and ex-prisoners (5 in numbers). It was found that a clear majority of the respondents considered religious interventions instrumental in accomplishing the goal of prisoners’ reintegration i.e, making them law abiding, productive, contributing and pro-social citizens. Many of the apparently incorrigible and potentially dangerous prisoners altered the course of their lives once they went through religious programs inside prisons. It was also discovered that in KP prisons, there was no effective network of chaplaincy services, and often these services were provided by self-motivated religious prisoners and rarely by the prison management with the collaboration of NGOs.  Yet, the existing religious interventions had an extraordinary impact in terms of reforming the inmates. Hence, it is recommended that any prisons’ reform strategy must incorporate a well-designed framework of religious programs to transform criminals into an asset for society.

Consensual and Conflictual Political Culture in Pakistan: A Comparative Analysis of Jamaati Islami & Jamiat Ulema-I-Islam Socialization Process

This study reflects on the consensual and conflictual political culture in Pakistan and specifically in two religio-political parties i.e. Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam. It validates the argument that consensus and conflicts within political parties are because of the socialization process of their workers. It fundamentally tries to investigate the questions of “how a culture of consensus or conflict is developed through the process of socialization”. How JI and JUI socialize their workers? And “how far socialized workers in JI and JUI accommodate people of other political parties and ideologies”? The scarce literature on Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam failed to explain the political behavior of the workers of these two parties. In the political socialization scholarship, socialization is a continuous process and different agents and factors have significant roles during the whole process, which shape specific preferences of the “socialized” workers. For JI and JUI, socializing and politically educating the future citizens of the polity is the primary duty of the family. Political and social conceptions along with religious ideas and values found among members of JI and JUI are thus transmitted through, especially, parents’ in the family, more than schools, peer groups and mass media. Family transmits the parents political values and disposition to the coming generation, thus provides a continuous ideological commitment and man power to the parties. It also validates the argument that certain aspects of children’s lives, such as civic participation, shaping voting behavior and party identification etc. are in the domain of families and parents in JI and JUI affiliated families. Educational institutions established by the workers of these parties also socialize and indoctrinate the ideology of JI and JUI in the children. In terms of communicating the curricula contents and messages to the students, the role of teacher is much important. His personal values, likes and dislikes and political affiliation greatly affect the classroom discussion, learning and the intellectual growth of the youth. Student organizations (IJT and JTI) in the education institutions across Pakistan are providing a significant environment to the students and prepare them for their active political roles in the society. They work as nurseries for JI and JUI by providing them man power (socialized workers) and future leadership. Both the organizations are having regular systematic training and socialization procedures, which are missing in other contemporary student’s organizations in Pakistan. However, both JI and JUI are not much successful in utilizing the modern communication tools as compared to other political parties. The excessive commercial nature of the traditional media caught up both the parties to get maximum advantage of it in terms of propagation of their ideology and political program. Though JI is trying to fill this gap with the maximum use of social media, JUI affiliates and leadership is neither that familiar with the modern social media and communication tools nor having much involvement in the social media. D. I. Khan and Dir districts were selected for this study primarily on the basis of the parties overwhelming presence, their extensive activities in engaging their workers, their electoral gains as compared to other political parties, and lastly, in addition to belonging of the central leadership of both the parties and their electoral constituencies in these regions.