Will be presented by Virtual Presentation
on Mid of November 2014


Special Diamond Found from Prison

Ahmad Zaidi Joharia [1], Mohd Izam Ghazalib, Tamby Subhan Mohd Meerahc, Alis Putehd , Taufiq Hail Ghilane,
a University Utara Malaysia, School of Education UUM, Kedah 06010, Malaysia
b University Utara Malaysia, School of Education UUM, Kedah 06010, Malaysia
 c Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,Faculty of  Education, Bangi 43600, Malaysia
 d University Utara Malaysia, School of Education UUM, Kedah 06010, Malaysia
 e University Utara Malaysia, Collage of Art &  Science UUM, Kedah 06010, Malaysia
Abstract

The purpose of this study was to answer the question of whether a prisoner's behavior change through appropriate environment while in jail and out of jail. Research questions are: 1) How does a prisoner in jail can change his behavior towards positive behavior? 2) What causes his behavior in prison to change? 3) How can we conduct an ex-convict out of prison to change behavior towards the positive direction? 4) What are the reasons for the behavior of prisoners outside the prison to turn into a positive direction? This study is a qualitative study in a retrospective case study. Data was collected through observation and interviews. The study was conducted on a prisoner who is illiterate and had no guidance from his family since his childhood. This prisoner was imprisoned and sentenced to death because he was arrested on drug distribution offense. Once after being in prison for a month, another prisoner jailed with him. He, the later, was a religious teacher who also imposed the mandatory death penalty for punching student to death. The religious teacher asked the prisoner and his colleagues in the prison room to study religion and religious practices such as prayers, chanting and praying fervently. After a year of studying in earnest, the prisoner became religious and righteous person and then he was released for the hearing of an appeal that made the allegations lack of evidence. The findings of this study is that a prisoner can change his behavior to a positive behavior, both in prison and outside prison, if he finds the cultivated environment. Recommendations from this study are to work out suitable environments, especially in the spiritual sense to educate prisoners.

Keywords: Prisoner; jail; drug trafficking.
1. Introduction

A prison is an institution in which individuals are forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the government as a form of punishment (Doughlas Harper, 2013). Rehabilitation aims to make reform of the characteristics of the prisoners and render them a good figure when returning to their community. However, now it aims to prevent these prisoners, when released, from re-entering the crime field and return to their former state of being offenders to themselves or the community. There are many techniques used for preventing the return to crime and go-straight that includes educational and vocational training, psychological rehabilitation, dealing with various problems the offender may experience in life. Drug-addicted prisoners can also receive treatment for their condition in some prisons.

 The laws relating to illicit or entertainment drugs are strict and the penalty for breaking them is severe. For example, Malaysia strictly enforces its drug laws and Malaysian legislation (sale of Drugs Act 1952 revised 1989) provides for a mandatory death penalty for convicted drug traffickers. Under Malaysia anti-drug laws, any person found in possession of at least 15 grams of heroin, 200 grams of cannabis is presumed, unless the contrary is proven by the accused, to be trafficking in the drug. The prisoners must stay in accordance with regulations of the country, and the rehabilitation activities remains until the prisoner’s release. The Malaysian prison is the responsibility of the Ministry of Internal Security and Malaysian Prisons Department serving the community by holding those sentenced by the court (Malaysian Official Prison Porter 2014). The goal of prison, in addition to punishment, is to effectively creates a positive behavior to reduce violence, victimization, and recidivism. Its mission to safeguard the security and safety amongst people and, at the same time, provides appropriate rehabilitation and reform programs for the inmates.

Incarceration can be a wake-up call for people who commit crime. It can be a time for introspection and evaluation of one’s life—a time to reflect on the past, present, and future. As a result, prison rehabilitation programs often seek to provide skills in self evaluation and self development in order to help prisoners in their quest for greater self-knowledge, better behavior and future direction. Moreover, it is crucial to know the factors that triggers the development of the criminal deviation into crime to better understand the reasons of desistance from crime (Haggård, Gumpert, & Grann, 2001). Consequently, this paper is exploring the real reasons for development of criminal behavior and the rationale behind the desistance and prevention of relapse of ex-offenders.


2. Methodology

Desistance of crime is the major concern of many social organizations, government security and reformation authorities, and academicians. Some researchers state that social factors are playing a significant role along with subjective factors to desist crime and go straight in attitude, as stated by LeBel, Burnett, Maruna, and Bushway (2008). On the other hand, the environment is also playing a supportive and influential effect to abandon crimes especially with those who has strong willpower and have their own resolve, as stated by (Laub & Sampson, 2003). It is the aim of this exploratory study to investigate the factors that made this ex-prisoner drug trafficker to desist this career and the reasons behind his desistance of this crime and going straight.

In this study, the sample is of an ex-prisoner of an older population of age 60, but committed offend when he was at the age between 20 and 26. He was incarcerated in prison for a period of two years and then was released for not having enough evidences against him. He is now at the age of 60 years old and he is a productive person in the community, supporting himself, his family, and having his own business. This participant is married, was also married when he started drug trafficking, and is working in his own restaurant with his son and wife at the time of the interview.

This interview conducted using semi-structured method during a home visit with open-ended questions to further probe deeper into the issue and find out the real causes and rational behind his crime and desistance from crime. He was asked about his subjective experiences with this living situation, the (anticipated) time in which he was inside prison, when he was in prison, and after he was freed from prison. The time for the interview was approximately for 105 minutes, at a space yard of a mosque (Muslim warship place). He was encouraged to talk about subjective experiences and was probed when important specific topics arose. All the interview was conducted in Malay and serves as a valuable supplement to bring new insights. This qualitative method is particularly suitable to study topics that are multidimensional, dynamic, contextual, and subjective, relatively novel and where issues relating to identity, the self and sense making are important (Smith, 2004).

There were three interviewers, (the main interviewer, the translator, and interviewer assistant to record conversation using audio device connected to laptop), that conducted this interview. At the onset, the participant was informed that this interview is for the purpose of academic research, voluntarily, and can be stopped or paused at his convenience. He also was told to ask for any clarification at any time during the interview. In addition, the interviewees asked for his consent to allow audio recording and the final audio script to be presented to him before final publishing of this study. The translation and lingual corrections were made to preserve the readability and contents of the context.

2.1. The Present Study

By using qualitative methodology, the overall purpose of the present study was to gain a greater in sight and understanding of what changes of the behaviors to Hasan before he entered prison, in prison, and after free from prison. We have three specific research aims. Firstly, to explore and obtain more in depth descriptions of prisoners’ experiences with the actual or anticipated moment before prison, in prison, and after free from prison. Secondly, to explore the reasons behind the respondents’ behaviors change inside the prison; and finally the circumstance surrounding the prevention of recidivism and helped the re-entry and integrating inside the community.

2.2. Participants

There are three participants who took part in this study with a Given pseudonyms of  Hasan, Zaki, and Nasar. They lived in a country in Northern Malaysia. Firstly, Hasan is a prime participant because this study focuses on Hasan’s significant behavior changes. Secondly, Nasar is the chief of the village. Finally, Zaki is a friend of Hasan and his neighbor who is a close friend to him. All the participants are male and Malay. The information concerning these participants are listed in following table.

Table 1 participants.


Name
Age
Job
Qualification
Hasan, ex-prisoner
60 years
Self-employed
Illiterate
Zaki, friend
55 years     
Trader
Secondary  School
Nasar
58 years
Chief of the village
Secondary  School


2.3. Procedure

Initially, a verbatim transcripts of the semi-structured interview of an old ex-convicted prisoner were analyzed using a step-by-step (systematic approach) as described in detail in Smith and Osborn (2003). First, the interview transcript was repeatedly read to familiarize with the story. Comments were denoted of what was said during the interview and some initial interpretation were denoted too. These initial notes were analyzed to find the nascent themes and formalize the main and sub-themes. At this stage, it is crucial that these themes reflect the view of what the respondent meant in the context. After that, these themes are arranged in a list to find relevance among them. This arrangement of themes required repeated procedure were the researcher constantly returns to the transcript to check whether the participant’s phrases support the researcher’s interpretation. This approach resulted in a final list of themes. It is worth noting that the researcher has to involve to make sense of verbal accounts being analyzed (Smith, Jarman, & Osborn, 1999). Researchers should acknowledge their previous assumptions or understandings to understand and be unbiased to the phenomena under investigation, which is referred as bracketing (Smith et al., 2009) to obtain the trustworthiness of the research process. Moreover, to enhance trustworthiness of the findings, the technique of analyst triangulation was used by three different researchers (Patton, 1999). The first researcher, who analysed the transcripts, is a male and associate professor in education. The second researcher is male and associate professor in education. The third researcher is male and  professor in education. He was not directly involved in the analyses of the transcripts using the systematic approach, but contributed to the comprehension of the emerging themes.The fourth researcher is male and senior lecturer in education. The fifth researcher is doctored student in education.

 Comparing the findings of two or more researchers who independently analyse the interview data provides an important check on selective perception and blind interpretative bias (Patton, 1999). (i.e., the participants mother tongue); the interview translated to English afterwards.

3. Literature review

3.1. Environment Effect

Haney (2001) presented his view on prisonization and explained that human has the natural and normal adaptability to different conditions such as prisoner’s life that has different living conditions, standards, and environment he/she was accustomed to it. This is supported by human development theories that emphasize that human is affected by the surroundings and environment around to create different attitudes either to adapt self against the challenges faced, or adapted self to defend that challenge. From this, we can say that life in prison should help the prisoner to recover from injuries of the spiritually or mentally and this environment should support that goal to heal and enhance the psychological adaptation inside the prison.

In a study conducted by Singer (2012) the researcher gave details of the different challenges faced by the prisoner and gave detailed explanation, description, and adaptions phases of the prisoner behind the bars of prison. The researcher characterized life in prison as it is somehow unknown to anyone that was not imprisoned or has known someone to be. It is a different atmosphere and environment that one can imagine. The prisoner is kept inside an isolated and closed place for guilt that he/she commit against the community, family, law, even himself/herself. This creates a feeling inside the prisoner that he/she are relegated and treated as a lower social class figure. Inmates face this harmful feeling and shameful sense of humiliation as they face the community when they return to it. They are, in prison, watched, supervised and under control of the authorities. They have no choice except to obey and adhere to the rules and regulation of what they should do or should not. They are almost like machine that lost its self-control and should follow instructions inside jail or incarceration. Thus, a new behavior is created to deal with themselves, from one hand, and to the authority in jail from the other hand, Singer (2012).Their personal traits and behavior is either hold back to adapt themselves to this new situation inside jail, or show new behavior because of surrounding implications. The researcher concluded that these changes are normal to human nature as the challenges of life course create new behavior to adapt to the new environment. In addition, the psychological adaptations inside prison is a way to maintain mind, spirit and body of the prisoner.

The environment has control over our attitudes and actions/reactions that we take in everyday errands and matters. Take for example, if the violence is spread out in an area, sense of retaliation and revenge is probably reveals amongst this community. Another example would be of importance, especially in the modern life of today, when there is a great gap between the community population. That is to say, two categories do exist the poor and the wealthy people, which creates the hate between these two categories, the sense of having more money in a short time amongst poor, the deviation towards drug abuse to forget or to live in imaginary rich life, and the sense of humiliation amongst the marginalized categories of the society. This would drive us to say that environment is one factor of the deviation of offenders or the relapse of ex-prisoners after being discharged. Supporting this view is stated by the Basic Behavioural Science Task Force (1996), “social, cultural, and environmental forces shape who we are and how well we function in the everyday world.”

3.2. Self-efficacy, Agency, and Willpower Effects

Many scholars and academic researchers emphasized the importance of one’s willpower or agency as a key element in changing the intention of criminals to go-straight and to quit offending actions. This area is thought to be a wealthy and noteworthy to further be investigated and explored in the way towards desistance from crime (Weaver, 2009; Sampson & Laub, 2005; Bottoms, Shapland, Costello, Holmes, & Muir, 2004). The psychologists, academicians, and researchers in this area have investigated the effects of self-efficacy and willpower of individuals and found that inmates can turn to be effective figures if they had the proper treatment and rehabilitation programs to change their beliefs to become productive figures, give guidance, and aftercare when re-entering the society. Supporting this view O’Connell, Enev, Martin, & Inciardi (2007) pointed out that when the offender has the intention and want to change to become good figure inside the community and take further steps towards changing. This sense of agency would lead the offender’s ability to change with different mechanism. In principle, the change has to become form oneself to make oneself continue to behave as he believes not as transient notion or delusion that crosses the thoughts and renders to its final of obliviousness. Furthermore, it is expected that when the offender is released and returns to his/her community, the old fellows would probably persuade him/her to return to the career or persuasion to relapse into criminal environment.

3.3. Family and Social Bonds Support

The inmate in prison faces lots of transactional feelings and psychological effects especially when they realize the new different surroundings, regulations, people, and lack of freedom to do what they used to outside prison. These changes, almost in all cases, have negative impact on the inmates that provoke new attitudes and intrapersonal and interpersonal adaptations mechanisms. Therefore, the reform systems and rehabilitation programs inside prisons come to an importance of presence at this critical period of inmate’s life. In addition, the family and friends support is very important to render the inmate better facing these sudden changes and traumatic assault. This can be made by different means as regular visits, mails, and telephone calls. Notably, the social support, in many studies conducted, found  to be a reliable and valuable source to overcome sever effects of trauma psychological assaults and reducing its negative effects as noted by authors (Cohen & Wills, 1985; Sarason, & Pierce, 1990; Cullen, 1994; Biggam & Powers, 1997). In addition, Listwan, Cullen, & Latessa (2006) noted the importance of family roles in preventing relapse of the ex-prisoners in research and pinpoint the importance of the close bonds of family to maintain the continual contact with inmates while in jail.

Most people can become conscious of their own thoughts and behaviors after influenced by other people’s thoughts and behaviors and then make positive changes to themselves. A person's thoughts are often the result of experience, and behavior is often influenced and prompted by these thoughts. Beliefs, attitudes, and values affect the way people think and how they view problems. These beliefs can distort the way a person views reality, interacts with other people, and experiences everyday life, (Landenberger 2005). Therefore, the social and family bonds reside on the foremost of importance to formalize the way the person thinks and builds his beliefs and thought that eventually will be reflected on his behavior.

 Social support is divided into two categories and can be expressive or instrumental. The first is described as showing sympathy, sharing emotions, releasing negative feelings, and promoting self-worth and trust of oneself (Listwan, Colvin, Hanley, & Flannery, 2010). The second type is identified as giving advice or guidance to the inmate or even offering materialized things. This kind of social support, of both types, strengthen the relationship between inmate and the supporter resulting in the reduction of negative feelings of depression, despair, and loneliness and create a  sense of security inside the inmate, (Cohen & Wills, 1985). On the contrary, the cessation of family contact or relatives may provoke negative results on the inmate and cause them to suffer a lot resulting in deterioration of mental and psychological health being. The family and social bond were given a thorough importance in research and that made this study focus on this factor during the interview phase.

3.4. Religion Doctrine Effect

Religion considered a significant element in guiding, controlling, and tuning the behavior of individuals in societies as pointed out by (McCullough and Willoughby, 2009). It is a driver in leading or controlling the behavior of people in every aspect of their life and as an influencer of their decisions on health issues, business issues, social issues, or even in their tax payment, (Topalli, Brezina, & Bernhardt, 2012).

It is believed in a wide scale that religion is an effective means to reduce crime and to raise the self-conscience that eventually prevent or at least eliminates the crime in societies, as indicated by (Topalli, Brezina, & Bernhardt, 2012). In addition, religion has a strong deterrent effect on personal decisions to commit crimes or offend others in any means as the communities’ values, traditions, customs, or rules are influenced by it (Gedicks and Hendrix, 1987, Fowler, 1985). Religion inculcate inside its followers the idea and sentiment of punishment in the hereafter, if they deviate from its path and follow their own opinions (Kosmin and Lachman, 1994; Raven, 1999) and that creates a sense of self-mentor and an isolated boundary to commit sins or crimes. The human being is apt to deviation. However, if there is a sense of death or sever danger arises, the person is most likely aware of the consequences of his wrongdoing in the hereafter as indicated by many researchers (Osarchuk and Tatz, 1973; Ochsmann, 1984). Furthermore, religion has a strong influence to persuade, urge, and even control the human being nature, intentions, decisions, and his behavior; thus is a key influencer to prevent crime inside societies by restricting the offensive feelings of human beings. Topalli, Brezina, & Bernhardt (2012) stated, “Much of that literature focuses on the ability of religion to constrain or control offending by strengthening the bonds between would-be criminals and society, with the assumption that such bonds increase a person’s loyalty to and acceptance of mainstream values (Akers, 2010).” These aforementioned reasons makes, in our view, religion a strong influencer to enforce and enhance the goodness attitude of oneself that eventually persuades ex-criminals to repent and resume normal life when re-entering the society again. It also a control of individuals to keep a ways from offending acts before drifting into criminal groups that eventually lead to be member of them.

4. Findings and Discussion

The interview was divided into three periods of the prisoner’s life course, namely: 1) Period before incarceration; 2) Period in prison’ and 3) Period after incarceration. The study took this measure to probe deeper into prisoner’s life and find out the environment and all the surroundings of his life to enable finding out and exploring the real reasons and factors that led to crime. This approach is followed to get insight of the underlying factors that led to turn into crime and to probe what helped in prevention of relapse after released from prison. In the foremost, the investigation take into account the major change in prison that made a sudden change and shift into realizing the guilt that had been committed. In addition, the diamond that found in prison that render the offender purse in hoping that he would be released and become a good figure.

4.1. Period before Incarceration

This period consists the prisoner’s life-course in childhood and adolescent. The size of the family was relatively small that consists of parents, one sister, and the brother (the ex-convict). He was living in a small village, in a small house with his parents and sister. His parents were illiterate but the relationship between them was almost good. The family was poor, that led the parents work as paddy farmers on others’ land. The parents leave early in the morning, leaving their children in the house where there was not enough care for them, then return exhausted in the evening. The children were alone, playing around with some other children in the village. In addition, there were some relatives keep an eye to see if they are fine from time to time. Hassan said, “We are just alone, playing around, but somehow there are some relatives around that look over us. (We) just play with my friends, play “Gasing”…play Guli. If we are hungry, we eat “Janguih fruit or Keriang fruit.”

The ex-prisoner stated that parenting him was not enough and that was the culture at that time. He said,” They were going to work in the morning and return in the evening. They felt tired… They just do not really care about me! Because at that time it was common.” He was not satisfied about the care, love, or tenderness of his parents towards him; on the other hand, he accepted that reality that was common in the community he lived in.

Education was not of his interest, as the parents took him to school once and asked him to do so while they were outside to work in the rice fields. He used to go three time a week, and not having enough motivation to go there. He said,” It depends on myself, if I want to go to school, I will go. Maybe (I go) three time per week.” He was not considering education or having any kind of importance in his mind. After the age of 10, quit school ultimately and started to work with selling fish in the market, or help in bringing it to others.

On the other hand, the village chief stated that, “At that time about 90% of my village did not go to school because the road, at that time, to school or town (was) very challenging; it was full of paddy fields and in some places the road was restricted by the jungle, the bushes, and bamboo trees. Most of us was poor at that time.” This shows that education was not of strong interest of the community at that time, and the facilities to encourage the children to go to shcool did not exist thereby made the decision to children either to go or stay at home. This explanation reveals that culture and environmental surrounding play a role in shaping the attitudes of children and their future trend as we will see in the next paragraphs.

At time of his adolescent, at 17 years old, his father passed away and only his mother took care him. She had to work harder and that led to leave him move freely, especially with absence of the father’s power who used to advise him when necessary. He felt differently after the death of his father. He said, “Yes different. When my father was alive, he did advise me to not to do bad things, although he don’t know what I am doing. But after he died, I felt more freedom to do anything I want.”

He had the sense of responsibility to help his mother and to let her live in a better life standards. He mentioned, “Yes I do feel it. I find the money to help my mom too.” When he started to deal with drugs, his mother realized that his attitude changed, got the feeling that there is something wrong, and started to advise him not to do something wrong. He did not listen to her at that time. This declaration reflects the sense of responsibility of the mother, but the carelessness and disobedience of the adolescent.

In another context, when asked about his sister knowledge of his drug business, he replied, “No. My sister do not know about my business because she was married earlier before starting to sell drugs.”
The family social bonds were not enough to stop him from committing drug selling, even though the culture helps to straighten the attitude of family members. In addition, his best friend at that time, who was his colleague in work, indicated that Hassan was selling drug and he felt that. He said, “One day, when we were hanging under the tree and eating cherry’s fruit, I asked him if he is selling drug, but he denied that. I felt somehow he is involved with that business and I advised him to stop before getting worse. But he did not listen to me and went away!” This acknowledges that willpower and self-confidence can drift the individual to certain actions and attitudes, either good or bad, if he really wants what he thinks will bring benefit to him.

The chief of the village, who was one of Hassan’s father relatives, declared that Hassan had many friends in the village community, “Many people liked to be friend with him; he was handsome and strong… if there was fighting among youngsters, he was always the one who won. Most of the people (were) afraid of him.” It is clear that he was an influencing and important figure of his own small community that made drug selling easier to him. About the way Hassan got to be involved in drug, the chief of the village stated, “Some of Hassan’s friends were bad. Some of them took drug and sold it as well. They managed to persuade him to join them; they told him, “If you sell drug, you will have a lot of money; and if you take drug, you will feel like you are in the heaven!”” This is a strong indication that the environment and the friendship or social bonds inside societies, plays a critical role in involving juvenile in drug abuse.

In the day Hassan was caught; his friend saw Hassan having a case and rushing. He pointed out, “I tried to catch him up, but I did not manage to do so. That was the last day I saw him.” When he heard that he was caught, he did not believe that. He stated, “Hassan is a good person… somehow I do not believe that he had been caught. This is because every villager in the village do respect him. He was very helpful and kind with everyone!” This is a clear indication that a person may be is good, but other factors may influence to change his attitude and render him a criminal. The need and social pressure to become rich and live with life standards lead the offender to think of rapid and easy way to achieve this goal.

 At the age of 20, he started to know about drug by his friend and the money that can be obtained from selling, trafficking, or distributing it around. Hassan insisted that he did not use the drug. He said,” I knew drug from friends. I do not use drug… I sell drug because at that time I am so poor. I want to have a better live.” Poverty was the main influencer toward driving him to drug trafficking, to have better life standard and to taste life away from the poor conditions of his family. The chief also stressed that Hassan was not taking drug rather he was a supplier. He believed that Hassan did not take the drug because he only wanted to get more money and live with different life other than poverty. He said, “He became drug supplier, but he did not take the drug. He (Hassan) supplied Morphine to pushers then the pushers process it and sold it to others.”

In addition, he got married when he was 20 years old. He shifted to another house to live with his wife when he was at the age of 24. He continued to work with drug trafficking until the age of 26. He was intended to take drug to other suppliers in the main city with total quantity of 10325 gr of Morphine. The law was so strict at that time (Act 39 (B)) that stated anyone bosses 100 gr of Morphine, will be sentenced to death. He knew that but continued to work in that business until he got caught in 1978 when he was at the age of 26. Someone reported to the police with the huge quantity that he intended to pass to suppliers of the main city of Alore Setar (Malaysian city). The village’s chief said, “I knew the matter when police told me… at that time, there were 20 pushers and about hundred drug addicts around my area. Hassan got Morphine supply from Thailand and he supply it to other places.”

The ex-prisoner did not have any sense of guilt when he was working with drug trafficking, in the age between 20 and 26, but felt happy for getting the money. He indicated that he was away from behaving religiously and was not performing the daily prayers that wakes up the consciousness and the human feelings. He said, “No. No. No. Never feel it (guilt feeling). I am happy at that time. I also was not praying.” The religion was not attracting his interest nor a priority of his life. First and foremost, the focus of his new career was only to get money and with whatever cost that the community will suffer from. This shows the great gap between poor and rich of the society and reflects the lack of social support provided from government and private business sector to poor thereby increases the feasibility of criminality attitudes of poor and creation of offender with different motivations against society.

4.2. Period in Prison

The ex-prisoner had entered the prison at the age of 26 years old, and had difficult times. At the onset, he felt depressed, and a feeling of fear and despondency of being sentenced to death encountered him. He started to feel strange inside this new environment, thinking of different things: his wife, the court and the death penalty, and the previous freedom he had. When he entered the jail, he was just married for 8 months. That caused a lot of pain inside him. Even the rules and regulations inside the prison where difficult to bear, as he was not accustomed to obey commands since his father’s death. He stated, “I felt confined and depressed, plus being married just for 8 months.”

Slowly and slowly, he had to adapt himself to the new atmosphere inside the prison. He started to make connections with other prisoners, established new friends, and everyone started to narrate his own story of being inside the prison. He declared, “I had friends, I had. We tell the stories of each other. There were many prisoners in one room. Sometimes 5 prisoners and other times 40 prisoners but with bigger room.” In this context that prisoner describes the adaptation process that took place and this stage of being inmate is scholarly identified in many studies.

 Months being in prison, his conscience started to wake up, and a sense of guilt attacked him. He felt that life does not deserve all these pains and sufferings. He wanted to repent; this feeling was growing day after day; the prison, the death penalty, and leaving his wife after dreaming to establish family made him take the resolve to repent and go straight. He stressed, “I felt guilty when I got caught. I had a strong feeling to learn how to pray.” The willpower was strong to lead him to go straight. When he was asked about if any person, including the religion teacher, influenced his positive attitude, he replied, “No, it is because I want to change, (even) before I knew the teacher… I feel that what I (have) done is really wrong.” The sense of guilt and the feeling that he committed crime came because of both the environment of the jail and his inner feeling; he confirmed that by saying, “Both, from my heart and from the jail.”

A new inmate entered the prison, this person made the resolve to repent stronger. The inmate was a religion teacher who was accused of killing one of his students. This new inmate, started to teach the prisoners the importance of religion and being in the side of The Creator to help in overcoming these difficult times of life. When he was asked, “Why did you trust this teacher? Why did you listen to him?” He replied, “Because he was talking about religion… and I believe on that.” The teacher taught the prisoners to start praying, calling the lord and praising Him, to give faith to accept all what it comes from God and the final destination, the death penalty. The religion teacher was preaching inside the prison; they learnt from him everything to do in order to return to God. Unfortunately, Hassan was unable to read and write and he regret that. The religiosity inside Hassan increased especially after knowing how to pray and how to practice the teachings of religion. The religion role is here clear to change the thinking of Hassan of life, and the right and wrong.

When the ex-prisoner was asked, “What made you trust and listen to this religion teacher?” He replied, “I had already been ready to repent, it was decisive resolve to do so, but I was in need for someone to proffer to give his hand to me, to support me, to encourage me.” He had the strong willpower to return to goodness and never commit this crime again. He joined this religion teacher’s group, and the change took place in his attitude and faith in God.

Hassan was asked about if there were any other reasons to this change in his attitude and having the strong agency to quit forever this crime. He proclaimed, “My wife, my sister, and my mother used to visit me every month. They were supporting me and always pray for me that one day, there will be a miracle that will take me outside this place. They strengthen my faith of My Creator. I felt being closer and closer to the Lord of heaven” It was clear that his family was another element for support and encouragement to take him away of this despondency and to empower his agency to take the resolve to quit and that was a guilt that he should repent from it. Even though the visit was once a month, it was of great effect on his changing behavior. Supporting this, the chief of the village said, “When Hassan was jail, his mother, his wife, and sister always come and look over him at least once a month. When his mother, wife, and sister want to go to the jail to visit Hassan, they tell me.” Somehow, the village chief collected some money for Hassan’s mother and sister to visit Hassan because the distance to the jail and his house is about 40km far away. He stressed that, “Everyone in the village like to help them because they all knew that Hassan is very kind to them and Hassan also like to help them when was out there before he get caught.” This declaration by the chief of the village clearly shows that Hassan was having economic problems and this forced his to go to this path towards solve his poverty circumstance. Additionally, the family contact strengthened his willpower and self-efficacy to turn into a good person and reflects the importance of social bonds in shaping desistance from crime.

Other than that, his mother told the village chief, “She was happy because Hassan was learning religion inside the jail from religious teacher that he met in the jail.” The chief continued, “This is because, before Hassan jailed, he never care about religion. When I heard about that from Hassan’s mother, I felt happy for here, this is because, after Hassan’s father death I think of Hassan as my own son.” This is a reflection of how Hassan was thought to be a good person among most of the villagers, although he committed this guilt.

On the other hand, his friend was also visiting him and still believe that Hassan is a good person. He said, “Although he get caught of selling drug, I still care for him. I ask him about life in jail.” Hassan’s answers was, “I’m so sorry for not listening to your advice. Now I am learning religion. I want to be good person…I don’t want to be myself back there.” Hassan’s friend commented, “When I heard that he will be discharged, I was thankful to our Creator because he gave Hassan the second chance to change.”

Returning to Hassan’s life before entering the prison, His friend added, “One day I heard that the village chief want to collect money for Hassan’s family. When I heard that, I went to the village’s chief and asked him if I can help him. After that, I shocked because there were many villagers came to give their portion of money to help Hassan’ family. It looks like others really care about Hassan!”
When he was asked about his adaptation to jail, his feelings until he was discharged from jail, and if he established new friendship with other prisoners, he replied, “I felt fun, because there were many friends in there. Yes many friends. Somehow it made me think that what I did was wrong.” His attitude changed a lot, his willpower became stronger and a feeling of being deviated from the right path was hurting him.

When asked about the day of hearing the verdict, “Was there any hope that you will get free? Any miracle that will take you from this prison and being free again?” His answer was with confident, “Yes I felt that I will be free; I had dreams 2 time that I will be free. The first was, being beside a huge gate, and besides that, there was a high tree; then I climbed the tree and jumped over the wall. The second one I dreamed that I was driving a car, in front of me there was bridge with a tiny board; then I passed the bridge to the other bank.” He continued, “And in Ramadan (Fasting month of Muslims where food and water is forbidden to take before sunrise until sunset), when I practice prayers and when my head touches the ground, I felt that something is pulling my forefront with great relaxation and blessings touches my heart. I asked the religion teacher about that and he answered me that the Lord of the Heaven is blessing my prayers!” He was asked, “Did you ever think when you are out, what will you do or what you will work?” He answered with confidence, “I took the resolve to do anything that is good, any job, even if it is with less money.” Self-efficacy and willpower is a driver toward oneself resolve and that is emphasized scholarly with large scale in criminological studies.

4.3. Period after incarceration

During his stay in prison, he had fixed his confidence on himself and sent an appeal to the court. After 6 months, he has been released, as there were not enough evidences to accuse him of selling drugs. After discharging from the prison, for not having enough evidences against him, he had freedom again. The bad friend visited him and tried to convince him to resume selling drugs. Hassan refused the invitation. He commented, “Yes they had come to me, but I told them that I do not want to do it again. They never disturbed me afterwards.” This strong willingness became stronger after being in prison and learning to resume his faith in God and his confidence on himself. He took the resolve to quit drugs and this career that brought him to fake wealth and a life full of threats. In addition, a good friend was visiting him regularly and advised him to stay away from that job and to perform more supplications to God and he will help him.

The chief of the village said, “When the day of his discharge came, his mom had come to me (village chief)…she told me that Hassan will be release today. After that, I went with Hassan’s mother and his sister to jail to bring Hassan back home. On the way, Hassan’s mother had told me, “Pak Nasar, I do really miss Hassan… I want to hug him and I will cook for him his favorite food when he is at home,” when I heard that, I just smiled to her.” This shows how much concern was his family caring for him after he was out of jail. They did not deserted him or left him alone because of former offend, they on the other hand, helped him and proffered him support, encouragement, and intention that they want him and will never leave him alone. The aftercare family and social support is crucial at this point of re-entering the society again as it will foster his will to go-straight and find a job that will render him a good figure of society again and to integrate with the community in different productive way. The chief remarked that Hassan changed and that was evident since the day of his release, “One day in the morning after Hassan’s discharge from jail, he had come to me and asked me if there is any job that he can do. That made me happy! Besides, Hassan always went to mosque. He did show an excellent result of being a good person.”

In another context, at the time of the hearing day at court, his friend was so eager to celebrate Hassan’s release from prison. When it was decided to release him at the court, “I went to Hassan and hugged him. Alhamdulilah (Thank God).” That was a good indication that Hassan was in nature a good person but there were influences that facilitated being fallen in a pitfall of the fake happiness with lots of money. The need for money, poverty, and environment deteriorated his good nature and rendered him a criminal. Additionally, his friend added that the presence of Hassan in village again changed the state of the drug sellers and thieves. He stated, “There were much robbery, and many people selling drug around the town and village. However, after Hassan got out, the robbery became lesser, as well as the drug selling. This is because this kind of people do scare from Hassan.” He added, “Besides, Hassan do like to invite others to go to mosque (place to perform prayers of Muslims). Before he got out from prison, I was the one who be the imam (the one who leads other in prayers) for the prayer, but now Hassan is the one.” That is a strong indication of his complete change inside jail that made him be a leader of goodness and a sign of piety.

5. Result

The character under investigation, Hassan, had difficult childhood that lacked education, poor parenting standards, and influenced and surrounded by bad persons. He stated to Ustaz Abdul, the religion teacher inmate, that he, “never go to school, because it is away from the town. The road at my town also not really good.”  The poor parenting has crucial consequences not only for the individual, but also for the family and a society as a whole. It could happen because of socioeconomic deprivation. Family and social impact is influencing in Hassan’s case as poverty plays a strong role that derive the attention of the family to look for the essential needs and not being able or even neglecting the needs of raising children, sending them to schools, encouraging them to behave in a good manner and not to be drift towards bad people. Pool (2003) stressed the importance of mother in raising children and to provide social needs to children, but poverty pushed the parents, and mother specifically, to find job and be away from children that impacted their attitudes and changing their morals to be offenders. The social and family bonds were crucial in the ex-prisoner in his attitude before, inside/outside prison, and after incarceration. Supporting this result is according to a leader of prison reform, Dr. Harry Wexler, who stressed that prison-based drug abuse is effective only when it has an aftercare; therefore, that leads to reduction of recidivism. In our case of Hassan, he could not be able to continue to be straight forward in his behavior, unless there was a continual follow up to encourage him to be a useful figure in the community. The family bonds and social contact helped him in this regard.

Changing the environment to the one that has stable circumstances, essential needs to live, and laws and regulations to comply with it, or to face direct punishment, should affect one’s attitude. Hassan entered the jail, environment is changed ultimately, and new faces and new characters entered his life.  He met Ustaz Abdul, who was also waiting for death penalty, inside jail. He changed his perception of meaning of life, of people, of community, and of oneself. Hassan started to see himself again as good person and started to connect with the creator that influenced the sense of fear of Him if committing offends to others or to himself. This new environment created new friendship with Ustaz Abdul who raised the faith of The Creator inside Hassan, and gave a positive impact of Hassan’s willpower and self-efficacy. The religion was the way, which Hassan believed to save him and to change his life towards being good figure. Furthermore, religion raised his belief of taking the resolve to quit drug selling, and reduced the possibility of recidivism and strengthened the intention of going-straight.

In addition, being in environment providing facilities to be educated and rehabitated raised the positive awareness level of Hassan, helped to create new motivations towards life and maturation of self that helped in understanding the negative side of a person.  The final influencer of prisoner’s changing of attitude is the organization or the system inside the jail. It can change the way a person is acting or interacting with others in a systematic way and to behave in a positive manner, (Sparks, Bottom & Hay, 1996). 

Religion has a strong influence on the change of Hassan’s perception, strengthened his faith and his willpower. Ustaz Abdul helped him in this task and was a source of light to show him the good interpretation of religion as a source of good life among people. Hasaan said, “Ustaz Abdul, I feel like  learning how to read the Holy Quran. Besides, I do not want to die like this.” It is obvious from this words that his decision is stronger when he got comprehensive knowledge about being good and to act in a good manner.

Final findings support the Desistance theory in that agency and willpower with strong belief is a primary mechanism for changing behavior and desistance from crime. For example, if the offender realizes the positive outcome of desistance, he is perceived to have enough awareness of controlling himself. Consequently, this leads to prevent relapse and integrates to society easily.

6. Conclusion and Future Research

The present paper attempted to probe the factors that leads to criminal activities and careers. The interview based on open-ended questions to explore deeply the hidden side and circumstances that surrounded the crime development. The investigation encompasses the childhood, the juvenile and adult periods of life of the ex-prisoner. This, in our view would further explains the complete picture of the real factors that lead to crime. The diamond found in prison with its several facets is enumerated as follows: 1) The return to oneself, 2) The realization of the guilt, 3) The resolve to repent and realization of the value of desistance, 4) The raise of self-efficacy and awareness of self-control to live crime free life, 5) The discovery of the fake vision of being rich with committing crimes, 6) The realization of social support and guidance inside and outside the jail, and 7) The self-esteem to monitor oneself of what should be done or shouldn’t in all life aspects of life in a way not harm anyone.

 Future research needs to address the limitations of the present study and build on the findings of this study. The sample was at convenience and cannot be generalized to the inmate population as a whole. We recommend in future studies the random sampling including different categories of age, ethnicity, and crime type. These studies can be qualitative, quantitative, or even mixed of both. This, in our view, therefore, will give comprehensive insight of factors preventing the relapse and the return to go-straight. Additionally, this paper attempted to explore offender’s believe of crime against society and oneself, the desistance from crime, and the prevention of recidivism. It also highly advised to focus on additional factors leads to crime, prevent crime, and help re-entering and integration into society specifically education, parenting and bringing up individuals, community social responsibility, and role of religion in protecting community members.
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[1] Ahmad Zaidi Johori. Tel.: +6-019-267-6634