There is a price to freedom: only 12.3% will employ released prisoners | Israel Hayom

Only 12.3 per cent of employers are willing to employ released prisoners, even though 68 per cent of them see employment as an important rehabilitation tool, according to a survey conducted by the Employment Service together with the Israel Prison Service, which included 1,965 employers.

The purpose of the survey was to examine employers' attitudes regarding the employment integration of released prisoners. It also emerged that 41 per cent stated that they would not consider employing a prisoner, and 43.3 per cent stated that they would be willing to consider it.

Only 22.1 per cent of employers have hired a released prisoner at some point and about 20 per cent reported that they would not do so again, although about 45 per cent reported a fairly positive experience. Among those 77% of employers who have not hired a released prisoner at all, only about half would consider hiring a released prisoner in the future or would choose to do so in practice. However, 55% of them clarified that the nature and severity of the offense would have a decisive impact on their decision to consider employing or actually employing released prisoners in the future.

Sex crimes and murder are the red line for most employers. About 70 per cent of all employers, whether they employed released prisoners or not, have made it clear that they will not employ released prisoners who have been convicted and served sentences for various sexual offenses and murder.

Sexual offenses are perceived as the most serious, followed by murder and only finally property offenses (including fraud) and violence. 39% said they would refuse to employ convicted sex offenders, while 30% said they would refuse to employ released prisoners convicted of murder.

Rehabilitation before discharge

IPS data show that recidivism rates (a behavioral pattern of convicted offenders released from prison into the community and returning to commit offenses) are particularly high, with 43% of prisoners released on full release (i.e., not entitled to a one-third reduction) since 2016 not only unable to reintegrate into society after their release, but returning to serve a prison sentence within 5 years of their release.

Rabbi Gunder Katy Perry (archive), photo: Jonathan Shaul

Although 68% of employers believe that employment integration has a decisive impact on the released prisoner's chances of recovery, only 38% believe in the realistic chances of rehabilitation. This survey, say the Employment Service and the Prison Service, reinforces the need for the new IPS and Employment Service's new initiative, "Integrating," which offers employment integration of released prisoners with accompaniment that will begin within the prison walls.

As part of the program, the process of vocational rehabilitation and accompaniment by the Employment Service will begin within the prison walls, three months prior to the prisoner's release, and will continue until they are integrated into the workforce. The process is led by placement coordinators, employment coaches and career counselors of the Employment Service.

Three months prior to release, the prison employment officer, together with the Employment Service, begins formulating the prisoner's employment record, in which the prisoner becomes familiar with the professional staff of the Employment Service that will accompany him upon release, including placement coordinators, career counselors and employment coaches.

Rami Graor, Director General of the Employment Service, told Israel Hayom that "this is a special and excellent project in my opinion that was done together with the IPS. It is at the beginning of the road and I have no doubt that it will yield good results. Nearly half of those who have been in prison come back again and it's a revolving door. To prevent this, this venture proposes a normative life path. Once he has no job, he has to look for himself and he sometimes meets friends from the past who bring him back on the same path. It's an extraordinary social value that can add thousands of people to the labor market, and it's also an economic value to the labor market."

Normative life path

According to Prisons Commissioner Kathy Perry: "One of the goals I set for the organization when I took office is to expand the rehabilitation and treatment continuum to the needs of the inmate, in order to enable his optimal integration into the community.

"Although we are a prison organization, and as such our responsibility ostensibly ends on the day of release, in my view, social institutions must join arms and create a continuum that will continue the processes taking place in prison, in order to produce useful and contributing citizens, thereby healing wider circles: the prisoner himself, his family, the community to which he belongs, and the personal safety of the residents of the entire country," Perry concludes.

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