Law students from Pannasastra University of Cambodia are getting a close-up look at life behind bars through an education program that aims to re-habilitate and re-integrate offenders back into the society
Chim
Setting them straight
Written by Kay Kimsong
Thursday, 15 January 2009
Law students go behind bars to educate young lawbreakers
LAW students from Pannasastra University of Cambodia are getting a
close-up look at life behind bars through a novel education program
that aims to lower the recidivism rate among young offenders.
The law students will teach young offenders at Prey Sar prison's
Correctional Centre II (CCII), a block housing only minors and female
prisoners with their young children, about the Cambodian legal system
and also help them with broader life skills.
The university is working with the Ministry of Interior on the six-
month juvenile justice program, which began Saturday.
CCII Director Chat Sineang said 60 of the facility's 380 inmates,
including 10 females, would take part in the first of what he hoped
would be many courses. "These children come from a background of
little education, so it is pleasing that the law students from the
university have come to teach them about the legal system and
practical life skills," he said.
"I think after we have worked together to help these young kids
develop a different awareness on life, including legal awareness, it
will help them become better people and help them try not to break the
law again."
The program is an offshoot of the university's Cambodia Legal Clinic,
which was launched in 2004 to provide law students with hands-on
training and improve access to legal aid for the poor.
Clinic director Raymond Leos, who is also dean of the university's
media and communications faculty, said the university's students would
act as role models for the young prisoners. "Our law students will
teach them about the law and human rights, and teach them about life
skills, so that when they get out from the prison they will have
learned how to be citizens," he said.
"The advantage of this course is that it is Khmer teaching Khmer,
young Khmer students working with young Khmer offenders."
The junior offenders will receive a certificate on completion of the
training program, and Leos said the university hoped to work with the
Ministry of the Interior to develop a system to monitor the progress
of students following their reintroduction to society. If successful,
the university would expand the course nationwide.
Give and take
Program coordinator Phun Vidjia, 24, who is also one of the 18
trainers taking part, said the university students would also learn
from the experience.
"I would like to give a chance to the young prisoners," he said. "We
can teach them but we can also learn from them about some of the
reasons they have committed crimes."
He said he had already found that the students were not innately bad
but had often been pressured into a life of crime by their family or
social situation. Many had been forced by poverty to drop out of
school and commit crimes.
"Not all of them committed crimes by themselves," he said. "The
circumstances around them led them into trouble."
That innate innocence meant there was a good chance the young
offenders could change their lives for the better on their release, he
added.
Phun Vidjia added that between 40 percent and 50 percent of the
offenders were in jail for less than two years, though some were in
prison for up to 10 years. Only 60 percent had legal representation at
trial.
Cambodia's criminal code mandates free legal representation for any
accused who cannot afford a lawyer, as do the international human
rights treaties ratified by Cambodia, but a lack of funding means many
face trial without support.
Sok Sam Oeun, executive director of the Cambodian Defenders Project,
which provides free legal advice to the poor and vulnerable, said it
was good to teach prisoners about legal issues but they most needed
practical training to help them find jobs as they tried to reintegrate
into society.
Chat Sineang said he hoped the program would inspire other
institutions and non-governmental organisations to get involved in the
education of the nation's prison population, particularly in the form
of practical work skills, morality and life practises.
The UN Children's Fund, Unicef, is already working closely with the
prison, he said, providing practical vocational training.