Exploring the perspectives of young offenders and correctional officers on rehabilitation programmes in Malawi: A mixed methods study

Abstract

The young people on the wrong side of the law are incarcerated at specific penitentiaries known as Young Offenders' Rehabilitation Centres (YORCs) in Malawi. Using the good lives model and risk needs responsivity principles, this study sought to explore the perspectives of young offenders and correctional officers on the nature and meaningfulness of the offenders’ rehabilitation at the five YORCs in Malawi. The study involved 340 participants in mixed-methods research utilising a convergent design. Specifically, the study involved randomly selected 290 young offenders (mean age = 19.8) in a descriptive survey, 25 ex-offenders and 25 correctional officers in semi-structured interviews. The key findings were that although most inmates were socio-economically disadvantaged, signalling the need for comprehensive rehabilitation, the study found that both inmates and correctional offenders viewed correctional activities in the YORCs as not inadequate. Thus, a few rehabilitative activities, such as education, farming and skills training, were haphazardly accessible at various YORCs. Many young offenders were forced to work in prison farms at three facilities disregarding their educational statuses. It was concluded that offender rehabilitation was not handled as a constitutionally mandated obligation in Malawi since the rehabilitation centres focused on security and agricultural productivity.

Keywords:

• ex-offenders
• Malawi prisons
• prison farms
• rehabilitation
• young offenders

1. Introduction

Rehabilitation of offenders has emerged as a critical function of correctional systems worldwide. Before the rehabilitation regime, imprisonment was aimed at incapacitating and extracting retribution from the offenders and deterring the would-be ones, thus, preventing crime in society (Cullen & Gilbert, 2013; Durrant, 2018). In Malawi, Burton et al. (2005) observe that prison life was dehumanising in the late 1990s with little consideration of offenders’ well-being and health. Offenders’ rehabilitation was not a priority. Thus, offenders were involved in punitive labour or let to stay idle in prisons for the rest of their sentences (Kajawo & Johnson, 2023). Prisons’ priority was ensuring that prisoners did not escape. Incarceration did not regard the well-being of offenders as citizens who would need to continue living after their release. There were no planned rehabilitation programmes even for young prisoners apart from skills training which were intended to enable them to provide forced labour within the prisons (Mwakilama, 2010). The understanding was that severe punishment would deter re-offending. Rehabilitation would accidentally happen as a result of individuals’ personal decision to change due to the pains of imprisonment. However, in modern times, rehabilitation is now given priority, especially to incarcerated young people. It is after realising that incapacitation and deterrence were ineffective (e.g. Brym & Lie, 2018; Cullen & Gilbert, 2013; Durrant, 2018). The emphasis is put on young offenders because they are considered as one of the special vulnerable groups (Fambasayi & Moyo, 2020; Nowak, 2019; United Nations, 1989). Thus, they need comprehensive rehabilitation programmes.

For this reason, young offenders are lodged in five special facilities known as “Young Offenders” Rehabilitation Centres’ (YORCs) in Malawi to access comprehensive rehabilitation activities suitable for their ages (Kajawo, 2019; Kajawo & Johnson, 2023, 2023; Kajawo & Nyirongo, 2022). Young offenders are inmates which the UN Economic Commission for Africa (2017) prescribes as young people between the ages of 15 and 24. These are the juvenile offenders whom Section 2 of the Malawi Prisons Act described as “young prisoner[s] … under the apparent age of 19 years and may, at the discretion of an officer in charge, include a prisoner whose apparent age does not exceed 20 years” who are incarcerated at YORCs (Government of Malawi, 2018b, p. 1896). In 2022, there were five YORCs out of 30 correctional facilities in Malawi (Kajawo & Johnson, 2023; Kajawo & Nyirongo, 2022). YORCs are obliged to provide comprehensive rehabilitation programmes that include formal education to the school-aged young offenders in their custody (Kajawo & Johnson, 2023; United Nations, 2015). Are these YORCs being, in reality, used as rehabilitation centres? This study examines the perspectives of young offenders and correctional officers on the nature of rehabilitation programmes accessible to teenagers and other young people in the YORCs in Malawi.

1.1. Offenders’ rehabilitation concept in penitentiary facilities

Rehabilitation is vague and poorly defined between and within the legal, criminological and sociological disciplines (Forsberg & Douglas, 2022; Meijer, 2017). Referring to the same rehabilitation processes, some scholars use the term “reform” as actions aiming at altering offenders’ personalities, while “rehabilitation” as aiming at improving offenders’ skills, capacities, and opportunities (Forsberg & Douglas, 2022; McNeill, 2014; Meijer, 2017). In other literature, the terms “treatment”, “desistance” and “integration” are also employed (Durrant, 2018, p. 384). Forsberg and Douglas (2022) also observe that some scholars perceive “reform” as an old practice of providing opportunities to offenders while “rehabilitation” as a more recent practice in which psychological interventions are applied to correct offenders’ character traits, motivations, behaviours and attitudes. It is aimed at building human and social capital in incarcerated individuals to reduce their chances of reoffending after release (Piquero et al., 2010). This article is guided by Durrant’s (2018) definition of offender rehabilitation as a collection of psychosocial programmes and services that assist offenders in addressing a range of needs related to their offending behaviour to lead to productive and satisfying lives. The services should range from educational, works-based, offender personality treatments to cognitive behavioural programmes (Blinkhorn et al., 2020; Durrant, 2018; McNeill, 2014; Wilson, 2016).

1.2. Evolution of the offender rehabilitation concept

Rehabilitation has evolved in practice and methods through the years. In the early period, the penitentiary was “where the sinner is allowed to reflect soberly on their behaviour, and on how to reform themselves” (McNeill, 2014, p. 4198). During those days, isolation, forced obedience and labour were the main principles guiding the management of prisons (Pollock, 2014). Offenders were thought to be “men of idle habits, vicious propensities, and depraved passions … ” who needed to be isolated to have the time for reflection as part of their rehabilitation (Rothman, 1971, p. 579). The understanding was that offenders needed to be taught virtues of obedience which would eventually enhance public respect for order and authority (Pollock, 2014; Rothman, 1971). Imprisonment was perceived as rehabilitative, enabling individuals to self-retrospect and settle their debts created through crime (McNeill, 2014). However, these methods did not divert much from the old retributive methods of banishment since they still assumed an offender as evil or weak and needed to be isolated from society to be taught societal values (Pollock, 2014).

More progressive medically-based interventions (medical model) later superseded these classical methods. Professionals were involved in correcting and solving individual offenders’ physical and psychological problems through individualised treatments (Campbell, 2005; Cullen & Gilbert, 2013; McNeill, 2014). However, medically-based interventions were strongly criticised due to their coercive nature and emphasis on control and discipline rather than the offender’s welfare (Durrant, 2018; Forsberg & Douglas, 2022). Practitioners depended on science to solve individual offenders’ problems. Penitentiaries began to be considered state-controlled laboratories where the poor and criminals needed to be coercively “fixed” or “changed” by social workers and psychiatrists (Pollock, 2014, p. 11). However, rehabilitative efforts should not aim at “fixing” or “altering” offenders implying “that something is wrong with them and they need to be ‘fixed’” (Forsberg & Douglas, 2022, p. 108). Instead, rehabilitation should be both a social and personal endeavour that considers the social, cultural, and moral context of offenders’ lives to assist them in deciding to turn away from anti-social to pro-social lives (Durrant, 2018; Forsberg & Douglas, 2022). The varying offenders’ needs should guide in determining the rehabilitative activities provided (Meijer, 2017).

As a result, modern evidence-based approaches were conceptualised and practised as improvements to the offender rehabilitation theory. Among many approaches, the risk needs responsivity (RNR) and good lives model (GLM) have been globally acknowledged as the best theoretical models for guiding offender rehabilitation (Andrews et al., 2011; Durrant, 2018; Forsberg & Douglas, 2022; Mallion & Wood, 2020). The emphasis in these modern approaches is that offender rehabilitation programming ought to be guided by a comprehensive plan that considers the offender’s criminogenic risk factors, incorporating the offender’s strengths and relevant environmental factors to provide the right competencies and resources necessary to help individuals realise their pro-social goals (Durrant, 2018; Ward & Brown, 2004). Firstly, the RNR model targets offenders’ criminogenic needs and matches the intervention to the offenders’ strengths and abilities (Durrant, 2018). It guides through their three key concerns in rehabilitation programming, which are; (1) who should be targeted for intervention (the risk principle); (2) what should be treated (the need principle); (3) how do practitioners rehabilitate the individual (Andrews et al., 2011; Durrant, 2018).

GLM is considered an expansion and “ … a complementary theory to RNR” (Mallion & Wood, 2020; Ward & Maruna, 2007, p. 142). It is a “strength-based” and restorative offender rehabilitation approach that focuses on enriching positive factors to help individuals desist from offending (Durrant, 2018, p. 397; Mallion & Wood, 2020). GLM aims to improve offenders’ internal and external resources to enable them to live meaningful lives at both personal and social levels. The typical personalised GLM programming has five phases. The first phase involves evaluating the criminogenic needs of each offender, similar to the RNR model’s risk and need principle. This phase is followed by clinical psychologists isolating the previous offender’s anti-social primary good(s). The third phase involves the selection of secondary goods, and evaluating the offender’s environment related to the potential schooling or employment options, leisure events, community aspects, and the available support to be included in the new Good Lives Plan (Ward & Gannon, 2006). The fourth phase involves evaluating the offender’s environment such as their living arrangements after release and their schooling or employment options to come up with a new Good Lives Plan (Ward & Gannon, 2006). In the final phase, the offender is assisted in ascertaining a new meaningful lifestyle by identifying their areas of competence that need improvement for the successful fulfilment of their plans, such as re-education, re-socialisation and the reinstatement of full citizenship (McNeill, 2012; Ward & Gannon, 2006). Therefore, a typical good life plan for a juvenile offender of school age needs to integrate education with other activities in response to his or her criminogenic needs.

GLM has been commended for offering a personalised approach to treatment as compared to RNR’s structured treatment, which is guided by a static curriculum (Ward & Gannon, 2006). GLM’s strength-based approach guided by positive psychology is also commended as compared to RNR’s focus on offenders’ risks of recidivism (Ward et al., 2012). Moreover, GLM’s focus on both low and high-risk offenders is also commended as compared to RNR’s only focus on high-risk offenders in the rehabilitation programming (Hannah-Moffat, 2005).

Nonetheless, both RNR and GLM provide detailed guidelines for rehabilitation programming. They both advocate for the involvement of individual offenders in developing their individualised rehabilitation plans, in contrast to the medical model’s coercive rehabilitation (Ward & Gannon, 2006). Studies have proven that effective rehabilitation programming for young offenders needs to incorporate education programmes with activities that would assist in addressing the underlying psychological offending factors crucial in young offenders’ correctional intervention (Wilson, 2016). Many incarcerated young offenders usually have experienced multiple social disadvantages even before their imprisonment (Johnson & Quan-Baffou, 2022). Most are often illiterate, school dropouts, substance abusers or addicts; some have mental-related illnesses and lack vocational skills (Hunt & Nichol, 2021; Nowak, 2019). Therefore, all criminogenic needs or risk factors, especially those specific to the individuals, must be addressed to ensure the programme’s effectiveness. Thus, GLM and RNR models’ comprehensive focus on addressing the criminogenic needs of offenders, in this case, school-aged young offenders, using psychosocial, educational and other vocational programmes provided an ideal guide for this study.

Studies show that Malawi has rehabilitation centres for young offenders (Kajawo, 2019; Kajawo & Johnson, 2023, 2023). However, there are gaps in the literature regarding the nature of rehabilitation programmes that incarcerated young people access in those facilities apart from formal education and vocational skills training programmes that studies have revealed (Kajawo & Nyirongo, 2022). Yet, studies conducted in some African countries indicate a scarcity of comprehensive rehabilitation programmes in facilities incarcerating young offenders (e.g. Ajah & Ugwuoke, 2018; Bella et al., 2010; Samanyanga, 2016). Cognisance of the reality that little is known if young people incarcerated in YORCs in Malawi are engaged in comprehensive rehabilitation programmes as advocated by GLM and RNR models of rehabilitation, this study sought to analyse the perceptions of current and former inmates as well as correctional officers on the nature and meaningfulness of the offenders’ rehabilitation programming at the five YORCs in Malawi.

2. Methodology

This study adopted a mixed-methods research approach, utilising the convergent design to generate and analyse qualitative and quantitative data concurrently (Creamer, 2018). The study separately generated and analysed descriptive quantitative data from the incarcerated young offenders and qualitative data from their released counterparts. Correctional officers were also involved as participants to enhance the verification of data from offenders and ex-offenders. The two data sets were later “compared or aggregated as part of the interpretation of findings, using the convergent design” (Roni et al., 2020, p. 21). In this way, the descriptive quantitative data from young offenders regarding the nature of rehabilitation activities in YORCs was complemented, triangulated and validated with qualitative data from the ex-offenders and correctional officers. The choice of mixed-methods design was influenced by the purpose of this study. The study intended to collect quantitative data from the generalisable sample of young offenders in Malawi to analyse the young offenders’ perceptions regarding their rehabilitation programming. However, this data did not provide reasons and justifications for their quantitative responses from their lived experiences. The participants’ experiences are human-constructed realities that cannot be easily captured in purely quantitative approaches (Creamer, 2018). Therefore, the exploration of their lived experiences was better approached using qualitative procedures.

2.1. Participants

This study involved a total of 340 participants. The study selected 290 young offenders at the five YORCs (38.5%, N = 748); 98% were male, while the remaining 2% were female. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the incarcerated young offenders at each facility thereby providing every member of the population “an equal chance of being selected” (Cohen et al., 2018, p. 215). The sampling frame was established from the inmates’ admission or register books at every facility. The young offenders’ ages were relatively distributed, as confirmed by a Shapiro-Wilk’s test (p < .05) with a mean age of 19.8 years (mode = 18, sd = 1.86). The 38.5% sample of the incarcerated young offenders population in Malawi enhanced the internal generalizability of the findings (Cohen et al., 2018; Verma & Verma, 2020). Additionally, the study involved 25 ex-young offenders (five previously incarcerated at each facility within three years). Ex-offenders released from the targeted facilities within three years were identified and selected using quota and snowball sampling techniques (Bachman & Schutt, 2018). The techniques were combined to reach ex-young offenders with required predetermined characteristics who were identified and contacted using the facility records’ information (Tracy, 2020). Finally, the study also involved 25 correctional officers to validate the findings collected from incarcerated and released young offenders. The inclusion/exclusion criteria were their current involvement in rehabilitation-related activities and the variation in work experience. The purposive sampling allowed the inclusion of officers with variations in age and experience in correctional education.

2.2. Data generation procedures

The study had two phases of data collection. In the first qualitative phase, an inquiry was made on the 25 correctional officers regarding their knowledge of the rehabilitation models, theories or principles that the Malawi Prisons Service (MPS) was using. Their responses enabled the researcher to proceed to the next phase, where the convergent design was fully utilised. A semi-structured survey questionnaire was then used to generate data from the 290 young offenders, which contained closed and open-ended question items. The questionnaire included demographic items for background data such as age, gender and offences committed. This was followed by other items covering the current research scope with a 5-point Likert scale and open-ended response spaces to allow them to explain or justify their close-ended items’ options. The questionnaire items covered; (a) elements needed in evaluating offenders’ criminogenic needs, such as the crime/offence they committed and their academic backgrounds, and (b) indicators of the availability and use of individualised rehabilitation plans, such as their involvement in various rehabilitation activities such as psychosocial interventions, education, vocational skills training and farming. Additionally, the study used semi-structured interview guides to generate data from ex-offenders and correctional officers. The qualitative data generated from ex-offenders and correctional officers helped “to cast further explanatory insight into survey data” and to explore rehabilitation issues in depth (Cohen et al., 2018, p. 506).

2.3. Data analysis

Data from this study’s quantitative and qualitative components were separately analysed and integrated to expose areas of convergence and discrepancy in the findings. Quantitative data were coded, classified, and summarised descriptively with the help of SPSS version 22.0. Descriptive analysis included frequency distribution, means, percentages and cross-tabulations, which assisted in summarising, comparing and exploring the data (George & Mallery, 2020). Some open-ended response data were converted using content analysis (quasi-statistics) into descriptive statistics to enhance the testing of the qualitative claims (Maxwell, 2012). The qualitative data from ex-young offenders and correctional officials were analysed using a narrative approach (Cohen et al., 2018). Data were transcribed and read several times to gain an overall sense of the meaning. The researchers combined a holistic approach with functional coding and categorisation advocated by Mishler (1986) to create a rich picture from the stories of released young people regarding their incarceration and rehabilitation experiences.

In this mixed-methods study, the reliability and validity of data were enhanced mainly through the triangulation of multiple sources (Maxwell, 2012; McMillan & Schumacher, 2014). Open-ended explanations in the questionnaires helped in providing clarifications and justifications for the Likert-type scale responses. Data from incarcerated young offenders was compared with data from correctional officers and ex-inmates which enabled the study to gain quantitative criterion-related validity called “evidence of concurrent validity” (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009, p. 152). The comparison and verification of data also enhanced the strength of qualitative data. Moreover, a pilot study was conducted at one of the prisons not included in this study on similar groups of participants to test the data collection instruments (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009). The reliability test for the young offenders’ questionnaire constructs found that all constructs were within the acceptable and good reliability range [0.62 ≤ α < 0.94] (Emerson, 2019).

2.4. Ethical considerations

Before data collection, ethical clearance was sought from the UNISA and MPS authorities. In all the interviews, the researcher took notes and audio-recorded the narratives and stories. The participants were identified using codes “YO” (young offender), “Ex-YO” (ex-young offender) and “CO” (correctional officer) combined with their respective facility codes and their given unique numbers. The coding was meant to enhance their anonymity. The facilities involved in this study are identified in this article using the researcher’s allocated names reflecting the unique characteristics of individual facilities to ease the readers’ identification of the issues with particular facilities. The names are NGO-supported (F1), gender-mixed (F2), modern-built (F3), city-situated (F4) and pure-farming facilities (F5). Before every interview or administration of questionnaires, all study respondents were informed regarding the study’s purpose, procedure and ethical issues and that they had the right to participate or not or stop participating at any time. Every participant who voluntarily accepted to be involved in this study was requested to sign or fingerprint on the consent forms. Moreover, permission was specifically requested for the use of audio recorders in interview schedules. The safety of participants was ensured in this study by not including participants’ names on any data collection instrument or dissemination platforms to ensure their anonymity and confidentiality.

3. Findings

To successfully address the offenders’ rehabilitation needs, the correctional service’s rehabilitation efforts are strongly advised to be grounded on particular rehabilitation models, theories or principles (Durrant, 2018; Forsberg & Douglas, 2022; Lugo et al., 2019). To enhance their utilisation, the employees should know and understand those models and their implementation strategies (Alfayez, 2020; Salum et al., 2017). Therefore, the study initially inquired from the correctional officers at the five YORCs on their knowledge regarding the service’s rehabilitation models, theories or principles. The results were that all 25 correctional officers were unaware of any rehabilitation models, theories, principles, or strategies. These findings compelled the researchers to move to the next phase of this study: to analyse the correctional practices in the five YORCs using the rehabilitation principles inscribed in the modern theories (GLM and RNR) to determine the nature and meaningfulness of the offenders’ rehabilitation practices. The study, therefore, analysed the level of the offenders’ criminogenic needs’ intervention and the involvement of young offenders as clients in their individualised rehabilitation plans.

3.1. The level of the offenders’ criminogenic needs’ intervention at YORCs

Offender rehabilitation programming needs initial activities identifying the individual offenders’ criminogenic needs to ascertain the right interventions (Mallion & Wood, 2020; Ward & Gannon, 2006). It would be relevant in the Malawian context in which this study’s demographic data showed that many young offenders (56%) were incarcerated for economic-related offences such as theft, robbery, fraud and wildlife poaching. The remaining 44% (n = 290) were incarcerated for violence-related offences, namely; rape, defilement, murder, manslaughter, abortion, physical injuries, child abuse, narcotics dealings and household delinquency. Specifically, 27% (n = 290) were incarcerated for sex offences (rape and defilement). These statistics denote the emotional and economic vulnerability of many incarcerated young people that makes them socially disadvantaged, signalling the need for comprehensive rehabilitation programming to target identifying and addressing the offenders’ underlying psychosocial needs (Andrews et al., 2011; Blinkhorn et al., 2020; Durrant, 2018; Forsberg & Douglas, 2022). However, the study found that young offenders, including sex offenders, were not involved in any activities to evaluate their criminogenic needs. Table 1 depicts the young offenders’ responses to the Likert Scale question items from “strongly agree” (1) to “strongly disagree” (5) regarding their perceptions of their involvement in each item stated.

Table 1. Young offenders’ perceptions on their involvement in the rehabilitation planning process

						95% Confidence Interval for Mean
		N	Mean	Std. Dev	Std. Error	Lower bound	Upper bound	Min	Max
I had sessions with a psychologist or social worker regarding my offence, and how I related with my community, family, friends and teachers at school
	NGO-supported	60	4.00	1.302	.168	3.66	4.34	1	5
	Gender-mixed	65	4.45	1.132	.140	4.17	4.73	1	5
	Modern-built	60	3.82	1.308	.169	3.48	4.15	1	5
	City-situated	60	4.72	.865	.112	4.49	4.94	1	5
	Pure farming	45	4.91	.358	.053	4.80	5.02	3	5
	Total	290	4.35	1.147	.067	4.22	4.48	1	5

Table 1 shows that 88% of young offenders (m = 4.35, sd = 1.15) indicated “disagree” and “strongly disagree” with the claim that they had sessions with psychologists or any social worker regarding their offences and their pre-incarceration relationship with others in their communities. It ought to be a crucial aspect of case management service. Identifying criminogenic needs determines the choices of activities in the individualised rehabilitation plans of offenders (Ward & Gannon, 2006). Generally, the admission process and practice at the five facilities comprised a compilation of offenders’ profiles for record purposes. It was noted that this procedure typically followed a brief induction to the facilities’ rules and regulations, as the following young offender described:

When I arrived here, I was taken to the reception by the gatekeepers, who welcomed me and asked if I was convicted. They informed me that instead of the five years of my sentence, I would only serve two-thirds, which is three years and four months. Then they made me sign the records. I was then given the prison uniform, and they confiscated my clothes to be taken to the stores. They then oriented me on life in prison and how I can relate to others. (F2/YO/06)

On my first day here, I was asked about my properties to be recorded. I was then interviewed on my health history, and the chronic illnesses I have if I have them… After being released from quarantine, we were given prison uniforms and we were let to mix with other inmates. (F3/YO/11)

When the admission was taking place at a farming prison, the next activity was usually farming for the new inmate, as indicated by one young offender at the gender-mixed facility.

When I arrived here, I went to that office [pointing at one of the offices] where I was asked to stamp on the records. After that, they gave me a prison uniform and informed me about the date I was expected to be released. I was asked to put on the uniform. I was later told that I would work on the farm. (F2/YO/09)

This admission procedure was confirmed by the correctional officers and the ex-offenders involved in this study. Correctional officers also added that the admission process also involved health screening. In some cases, young offenders were further oriented by the nyapalas. These inmates were made to be in charge of other inmates by the correctional authorities. The nyapalas would further orient them on rules and regulations. However, the nyapalas would sometimes bully and torture the newly admitted inmates who showed some attitudes, as explained by a 19-year-old admitted when he was 18.

When the prison officers admitted and welcomed me, I was handed over to an in-charge called nyapala. He took me behind there [pointing at behind one of the cells] called ‘butchery’… It is where you are beaten and whipped by the nyapalas as if they are killing an animal. They beat you to remove the negative tendencies you came with outside before orienting you on basic prison regulations ….

Many inmates and ex-inmates reported these ill-treatments and physical abuses by fellow inmates at all five facilities. From the inmates’ narratives, it was reported that some correctional officials were aware and encouraged the nyapalas to bully and ill-treat the newly admitted teenagers who showed traits of rudeness, defiance and bad conduct which were considered another way of disciplining and shaping their behaviours. Generally, these findings show that young offenders in the five YORCs were not involved in the initial activities aimed at identifying the individual offenders’ criminogenic needs to ascertain the right rehabilitation interventions in the correctional facilities.

3.2. Young offenders’ individualised rehabilitation plans

The GLM theory advocates for practitioners to work with offenders to develop an individualised rehabilitation plan during their stay in the facilities (Ward & Gannon, 2006). This study’s survey asked the young offenders if they had an individualised rehabilitation plan. Table 2 shows their responses to the Likert Scale question items from “strongly agree” (1) to “strongly disagree” (5).

Table 2. Young offenders’ perceptions on their involvement in the rehabilitation planning process

						95% Confidence Interval for Mean
		N	Mean	Std. Dev	Std. Error	Lower bound	Upper bound	Min	Max
I have a correctional rehabilitation or intervention plan
	NGO-supported	60	4.37	.991	.128	4.11	4.62	1	5
	Gender-mixed	65	4.91	.341	.042	4.82	4.99	3	5
	Modern-built	60	4.25	.600	.077	4.09	4.41	2	5
	City-situated	60	4.98	.129	.017	4.95	5.02	4	5
	Pure farming	45	4.93	.330	.049	4.83	5.03	3	5
	Total	290	4.68	.648	.038	4.60	4.75	1	5
All activities and programmes I have been involved in and within my correctional rehabilitation or intervention plan
	NGO-supported	60	4.28	.993	.128	4.03	4.54	1	5
	Gender-mixed	65	4.92	.322	.040	4.84	5.00	3	5
	Modern-built	60	4.23	.621	.080	4.07	4.39	2	5
	City-situated	60	4.98	.129	.017	4.95	5.02	4	5
	Pure farming	45	4.76	.773	.115	4.52	4.99	1	5
	Total	290	4.63	.709	.042	4.55	4.72	1	5

Table 2 shows that 94% of young offenders indicated “strongly disagree” and “disagree” with the statement that they had individual rehabilitation plans (m = 4.68, sd = 0.65) and the assertion that their incarceration activities were within their individualised rehabilitation plan (m = 4.63, sd = 0.71). Correctional officers and ex-offenders confirmed the absence of individualised rehabilitation plans. It was confirmed that inmates were haphazardly involved in the available activities. Inmates were never involved in their rehabilitation planning. Thus, they were only involved in the conveniently available activities. From the survey’s inquiry, the activities accessible to male offenders were education, farming, vocational and technical skills (e.g. carpentry, motor vehicle mechanics and tailoring), sports, drama and religious activities. All these responses were coded for descriptive presentation, as illustrated in Table 3.

Table 3. Cross tabulations: activities involving young offenders

Facility		None	Education	Farming	Vocat/Tech	Religious activities	Others	Total
NGO-supported: Count		2	36	47	12	5	6	108
	% within the facility	1.9%	33.3%	43.5%	11.1%	4.6%	5.6%	100.0%
Gender-mixed: Count		1	37	49	9	27	5	128
	% within the facility	0.8%	28.9%	38.3%	7.0%	21.1%	3.9%	100.0%
Modern-built: Count		15	16	39	6	-	1	77
	% within the facility	19.5%	20.8%	50.6%	7.8%	-	1.3%	100.0%
City-situated: Count		12	48	-	-	1	3	64
	% within the facility	18.8%	75.0%	-	-	1.6%	4.7%	100.0%
Pure farming: Count		-	-	45	1	1	1	48
	% within the facility	-	-	93.8%	2.1%	2.1%	2.1%	100.0%
Total Count		30	137	180	28	34	16	425
	% of total	7.1%	32.2%	42.4%	6.6%	8.0%	3.8%	100.0%

Notes: *Others include sports, Prisoners’ Journey, cleaning and drama.

From Table 3, many young offenders reported being engaged in farming at four facilities excluding at city-situated facility. Farming was followed by education. Of 425 counts representing 100% of the young offenders’ sample, 42% indicated farming, while 32% indicated education. However, there were no rehabilitation activities in the female section of the gender-mixed facility (the only facility with female inmates). It meant that all female inmates at this facility were staying idle from the day of admission to their release without any involvement in any rehabilitative efforts.

Furthermore, education programmes were not available at one facility (pure-farming facility) where all inmates (male) indicated to have been only involved in farming despite the majority indicating to need education. Furthermore, more than 90% of young offenders in this study reported that they were never involved in any counselling and guidance sessions or any other psychosocial activities as part of their rehabilitation programming during their whole incarceration periods. There were no psychosocial services at all five YORCs for the young offenders’ access, apart from religious counselling programmes such as Prisoners’ Journey, and informal peer HIV and AIDs counselling activities reported by a few individuals. Correctional officers explained that Prisoners’ Journey was a religious programme aimed at guiding and initiating reformation in the newly admitted inmates based on Christian values.

It was noted that these available activities in the male sections were conveniently allocated to the participants without any planned assessment of the individual rehabilitation needs of particular offenders. For education, it could take the intrinsic motivation of a particular young offender to register and attend classes since they were offered voluntarily at the four facilities. In contrast, the study found that involvement in farming was compulsory and coercive at the three farming facilities (NGO-supported, gender-mixed and pure-farming facilities) as compared to the remaining two facilities (modern-built and city-situated) which did not have farms. Almost all young offenders incarcerated at the three facilities were coercively involved in farming, including the school-attending teenagers.

We usually work on the farm in the morning. We then attend classes from 1 pm to 2 pm, for an hour and sometimes two hours. Hence we only learn a single subject or two per day. So, some inmates feel tired of attending classes after working on farms in the morning. (F2/YO/08)

I don’t like working on the farm. Farming is disrupting my education chances. Instead of focusing on education to attend classes, we are often forced to go to the maize field to work. We waste most of our time with farming, the time we would have used for our education. (F1/YO/01)

I wanted to continue with my education. But there is no school here [at pure farming facility]. We are whipped when we are working on the farm. And we are forced to work beyond our capacity. We do here the real “ntchito yakalavula gaga” (imprisonment with hard labour). We don’t even have time to rest. (F5/YO/22)

The participants reported that the young offenders’ education was seriously affected during the farming seasons since sometimes classes were suspended for weeks for the particular facilities to concentrate on farming. The released young people and the correctional officers confirmed this.

The school in the prison is tricky because of our work on the farm. I had to drop out of school and concentrate on the work we were forced to do. Whenever we went to the farm, we were coming there while tired. So to go and attend classes took much work. Their focus is on farming. You can easily miss classes, but you can only be allowed to excuse yourself from farming if you are inviting trouble. (F1/EX-YO/02)

One educator faulted the MPS agriculture policy as a vice to young offenders’ rehabilitation.

The problem is the MPS agriculture policy. This facility is expected to produce food for other adult prisons. Thus, the main activity is farming. Learners in all grades are engaged in farming. So they work on the farm in the morning and attend their classes in the afternoon. We would have always loved to teach them from the morning to afternoon, but due to this policy that every facility should have a farm, we failed to do that because many learners must be engaged in farming activities. This makes some inmates less interested in education. (F1/CO/03)

According to this officer, correctional schools were only used as decorative banners for the rehabilitation function of the MPS when in reality their priorities were on farming. In this study, 98% of young offenders at the three facilities where farming was compulsory reported that they would not have chosen farming if they were allowed to choose because of its punitive aspect.

I don’t like working in the farm at all. Farming is disrupting my education chances. Instead of focusing on education, we are often forced to go to the maize field to work. We waste most of our time with farming, the time we would have used for our education. So if I had a chance to choose, I would not accept being involved in farming (F1/YO/01)

Farming here is not attractive because it is like punishment. Before I came here, I used to work in the maize field, and it was okay. But farming here is like bullying or teasing. The only thing I do here is work at the farm. (F5/YO/25)

These narratives represented the norm in the perceptions and feelings of most respondents in this study. These results just show that young offenders did not have individualised rehabilitation plans. Thus, inmates were involved in activities conveniently available without ascertaining their usefulness and effectiveness to their rehabilitation and reintegration needs.

4. Discussion

This study concurred with the findings of many studies that many incarcerated young offenders experience multiple social disadvantages mainly due to their personal and household backgrounds of poverty and lack of education, signalling the need for comprehensive rehabilitation programming (Blinkhorn et al., 2020; Byrd & McCloud, 2021; Durrant, 2018; Farley & Pike, 2018; Forsberg & Douglas, 2022; Hunt & Nichol, 2021). However, the study found no programmes in Malawi YORCs involving young offenders to evaluate their individual criminogenic needs to help develop their individualised rehabilitation plans as advocated by the GLM. The study found that, despite the availability of the legal framework and policies, the management of incarcerated young people in the YORCs was not grounded on any rehabilitation theory or model and did not follow the general principles advocated by modern offenders’ rehabilitation approaches (Durrant, 2018; Mallion & Wood, 2020; Ward & Gannon, 2006). Lugo et al. (2019) argue that grounding offenders’ rehabilitation programmes on a particular correctional theory is essential for their effectiveness. That is because rehabilitation theories or models act as conceptual maps guiding the rehabilitation process (Durrant, 2018; Ward & Brown, 2004). As a result, young offenders were haphazardly, conveniently and sometimes coercively involved in various activities, such as education, farming, and religious and skills training, without any psychosocial programmes. Thus, there were no individualised rehabilitation plans, and some programmes such as education and skills training were accessible to young people only because they were conveniently available not because they essentially needed to be included in their individualised rehabilitation plan. For example, school-aged young offenders at the pure farming facility, who indicated that they wanted to continue with their education, could not be enrolled because education was not being offered at their facility. From their self-reporting in the survey, most young offenders indicated to have been coercively involved in farming compared to voluntary programmes such as education.

Studies have shown that comprehensive rehabilitation programmes that included psychosocial interventions were accessible to young offenders in some correctional facilities in South Africa and Zimbabwe in addition to standard programmes such as education and skills training (Fambasayi & Moyo, 2020; Jules-Macquet, 2014; Samanyanga, 2016). However, many studies still report their scarcity in many facilities, including those incarcerating young people in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Zambia (Ajah & Ugwuoke, 2018; Ngozwana, 2017; Samanyanga, 2016). Samanyanga (2016) showed scepticism about the effectiveness of the purported rehabilitation activities in Zimbabwean penitentiaries in addressing the needs of the offenders. The offenders were haphazardly handpicked and allocated to the conveniently available rehabilitation programmes irrespective of their suitability and personal preference, concurring with what was found in this study. Moreover, psychosocial interventions were accessible to very few inmates, thus limiting their impact (Samanyanga, 2016). Like in Malawi, most offenders in Zimbabwe were forced to work on farms, an activity perceived by the majority as punitive hard labour (Samanyanga, 2016). Ngozwana (2017) also observed the lack of proper rehabilitation planning for individual offenders in Lesotho since many offenders considered many skills programmes, such as farming, punitive due to their coercive nature and absence of educational components.

The MPS was yet to hire or recruit professionals to assist in identifying and addressing incarcerated offenders’ psychosocial and criminogenic needs. These professionals interact with young offenders through diagnostic therapy, counselling and guidance sessions, especially those with serious offences, to identify their rehabilitation needs and develop their individualised rehabilitation plans (Durrant, 2018; Mallion & Wood, 2020). These professionals also engage with the offenders in other programmes such as cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), chemical dependency treatment (CDT), sex prisoner’s treatment, and substance abuse treatment in the form of therapy or counselling before even starting other rehabilitation programmes offered in prisons (Duwe, 2017). Participants in this study indicated religious programmes such as “The Prisoners” Journey (TPJ)“as assisting in guiding and initiating offenders” rehabilitations. However, as much as religious counselling sessions can help, they cannot replace professional psychosocial interventions trained personnel provide (Andrews et al., 1990; Duwe, 2017). Their absence and eventual absence of their potential psychosocial and case management services indicated that young offenders were not comprehensively involved in rehabilitation programming.

5. Conclusion

This study has revealed that rehabilitation was not yet being handled as an obligation of the YORCs in Malawi as inscribed in the international and local laws. This study concurred with the findings of many African studies that most incarcerated young offenders experience multiple pre-incarceration social disadvantages signalling the need for comprehensive rehabilitation programming (Fambasayi & Moyo, 2020; Jules-Macquet, 2014). This is usually not accessible in many African correctional facilities (e.g. Ajah & Ugwuoke, 2018; Ngozwana, 2017; Samanyanga, 2016). However, the study found that YORCs in Malawi lacked well-planned programmes to evaluate offenders’ individual criminogenic needs to help develop their individualised rehabilitation plans. Despite the availability of the legal framework and their claim to be a rehabilitation-oriented organisation (Government of Malawi, 20182018b, 2018; Malawi Prisons Service, 2023b), the management of incarcerated young people in the YORCs was not grounded on any rehabilitation theory or model. It did not follow the general principles advocated by modern offenders’ rehabilitation approaches (Mallion & Wood, 2020; Ward & Maruna, 2007; Ward et al., 2012). Young offenders were haphazardly, conveniently and sometimes coercively involved in various activities, such as education, farming and skills training, without any psychosocial programmes. Moreover, many offenders considered their incarceration punitive due to their coercive nature and absence of psychosocial and other educational components. As it was, this study concluded that YORCs in Malawi focused on offenders’ safe custody and agricultural productivity rather than rehabilitation.

6. Implications for policy and practice

This study has important implications for corrections policy and practice in African countries. Firstly, correctional services needed to reconsider how they use farming as a rehabilitation tool as indicated in their strategic statements (e.g. MPS, 2023a). From this study, it is evident that offenders viewed farming as a punitive activity. Offenders have always been engaged in farming from time immemorial in Malawi prisons (Kajawo, 2019). During the one-party regime, Malawi had prison farms locally known for their brutalities, such as Matchaya (the whip) and Mzaleka (where you stop criminal life due to severe pains), where prisoners were not well-treated. Unfortunately, some inhumane traits still existed in the 2020s in the facilities called “Young Offenders” Rehabilitation Centres’. It is common knowledge that farming is essential in Malawi since the economy is driven predominantly by the agricultural sector, which accounts for nearly 80% of employment (FAO, 2015); thus, farming can be a skills training tool for many offenders. However, the modalities of its implementation needed to be reviewed to remove all coercion, inhumane and degrading characteristics from the activity.

Secondly, there is a need for the correctional services to start putting into priority their constitutional obligation of offering offenders various rehabilitation opportunities through proper sentence planning to enable them to spend their time in correctional facilities constructively. Effective rehabilitation programming has many benefits, such as reducing misconduct, lowering reoffending, and improving reintegration (Cullen & Gilbert, 2013; Durrant, 2018; Duwe, 2017; Murhula & Singh, 2019). Rehabilitation efforts needed not to be haphazard and activities of convenience, as was revealed in this study. They must be well-planned programmes administered by qualified personnel (Murhula & Singh, 2019). In South Africa, some correctional facilities have case management officers and psychologists who diagnose offenders and guide them after their admissions to ensure they are provided with proper rehabilitation programmes and treatments (Murhula & Singh, 2019; Ngozwana, 2017). Likewise, MPS has already shown considerable effort in setting the rehabilitation tone through its strategic plan and the 2020 organisation's functional review, which have both included the much-needed psychosocial and case management services (Kajawo & Johnson, 2023; MPS, 2023b). It would require authorities’ discipline and willpower to recruit the right people to fill those vacancies rather than the traditional promotion of the existing officers without those required skills. The MPS also need to invest in staff development in offenders’ rehabilitation to improve their knowledge of rehabilitation theories and their significance in the correctional regime.

Even though the current findings have important implications for policy and practice on young offenders’ rehabilitation in developing countries including Malawi, the findings need to be interpreted in the context that the study involved only young offenders’ centres. Thus, despite involving an adequate sample of 38.5% of the young offenders’ population (N = 753) at the five YORCs for the findings’ internal generalisability, triangulated by qualitative lived experiences of ex-inmates and correctional officers, the findings cannot be generalised to all correctional facilities in Malawi and other countries incarcerating adult offenders. This is because the management and the level of rehabilitation and other activities or programmes in adult facilities are usually different from those in young offenders’ correctional facilities. Nonetheless, the results serve as an essential indicator of rehabilitation issues and challenges of people incarcerated in a typical developing country’s penitentiaries.

Ethical statement

This paper is based on qualitative research data from a study ethically approved by the Malawi Prisons Service authorities and the University of South Africa (UNISA) College of Education Ethics Review Committee (Ref: 2021/07/07/13450549/05/AM). The authors followed all ethical requirements established by UNISA and the participants were informed of their right to participate or not or stop participating at any time, and that they were requested to give their consent before they took part in the research. Therefore, the material used in this article is the authors’ original work. This paper has not been previously published elsewhere.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This article is a product of a PhD study conducted by the first author and supervised by the second author with financial support from the Canon Collins Educational and Legal Assistance Trust and the University of South Africa Research Bursary Fund.

Notes on contributors

Samson Chaima Robin Kajawo

Samson Chaima Robin Kajawo holds a PhD in Education from the University of South Africa. His research background is in the incarcerated people’s rights and access to education in correctional facilities. His research interests also include education quality, prisoners’ rehabilitation, as well as prisoners’ conjugal rights and visits in Africa. He has worked in Malawi Prisons Service for 23 years in posts related to staff training and prisoners’ education. He also teaches part-time at various universities in Malawi.

Lineo Rose Johnson

Lineo R. Johnson is an Associate Professor at the University of South Africa, School of Educational Studies. Her academic background is in adult education specializing in correctional (adult) education in the Department of Adult, Community and Continuing Education. She has researched and published widely in correctional education, adult literacy, community development and indigenous knowledge systems.