Overcoming the challenge: from prison to the Girona labor market

2023-07-04 13:58:19

Reintegration is the goal of serving a prison sentence for any crime. And while it is no longer simple in any of its aspects, the labor issue is one of the key points that can make the difference with recidivism.

The Department of Justice has a public company dedicated to addressing this issue. This is the Center for Initiatives for Reintegration (CIRE), which has several branches, including training and employment, in order to make their day-to-day life easier for inmates once they leave the walls of the penitentiary centers.

According to the Justice data of 2022, approx 300 interns who have reached the third grade or some penitentiary benefit, either at the Figueres Prison (Puig de les Basses) or at the Montilivi Open Center they got a job through CIRE’s job reinsertion programs. This is a very important figure according to its director, David Font, who assures that in general terms, the inmates “have an absolute predisposition to train and reinsert themselves”. To achieve this, it is “very important”, according to the director, that they have “guides to guide them on what their best options are when they go out”.

In order to identify the labor exits with the most needs in the province of Girona, today the Department met with a dozen representatives of the business fabric, including the Federation of Business Organizations of Girona (FOEG) and the associations Metall Girona and Association of New Technologies Companies of Girona (AENTEG). The meeting, the first that Justícia has organized since the outbreak of the pandemic, took place at the Josep Irla Auditorium in Santa Caterina, and the business sector has transferred which are the itineraries with the most demand in Girona, between which there is that of the welding or the one of the vehicle repair. In this way, the CIRE can adjust the professional training it offers in the centers to better orient them according to the current market demand.

For now, the CIRE teaches nearly 250 courses a year, from which around 2,500 people benefit, and which are approved by the SOC or specialized with other official certificates in restoration, gardening, plumbing, welding, IT and clothing.

In the coming weeks, Justice will repeat the meetings in other Catalan territories to individualize the demands of each place. In view of the next meeting with the Girona business community, an attempt will be made to spin more thinly and tighten ties with more specific guilds.

Reinsertion from the inside

The first step, however, is already being taken from within the penitentiary centers. While they cannot go outside, the prisoners have the option of carrying out different jobs including tailoring, exterior maintenance, cooking, baking or cleaning the modules, among others. In Girona there is 399 interns working therei 11 companies from Girona commission production tasks partial or total in the public company of Justice in penitentiaries.

“We want to facilitate equal opportunities for inmates in reintegration into the workforce and for them to see the possibilities of growth once they get their freedom,” concludes Font.