Abstract
Education is a fundamental process of human life with ethics having an important place in all areas of our life. It is thus important to incorporate ethics into education as a subject (Gülcon Procedia-Social and Behavioural Science 174: 2622–2625, 2014). Reports have indicated in how “teaching philosophy can enhance people’s capacity for critical (rather than emotional) thinking, encourage critical engagements with ideas of self, and improve interpersonal skills, with these being important transferable skills that could help prisoners to prosper once released” (Reported by The University of Edinburg n.d.). This is in line with the South African prison system’s mandate, which is to maintain and promote a just, peaceful and safe society by correcting offending behaviour in a safe, secure and human environment, thus facilitating optimal rehabilitation and reduced repeat offending (Department of Correctional Services 2017). Therefore, for the system to fulfil some of its mandate; ethics education in prison for the purpose of rehabilitating offender’s moral thinking and reasoning in order to correct their behaviour before being released is vital. Ethics training was done at the Johannesburg Correctional Service, with a maximum of 40 voluntary participants (who self-selected themselves to take the training). Training was dived into three categories: 1. Tutorials. 2. Practical application of moral values of Ubuntu. 3. Discussion and debating another set of moral values as well as writing of assignments. Participants reported to have gained and learned to respect themselves as well as others (in their immediate community- prison and society at large), identify their faults (crimes they committed) and gained self-confidence. Application of this method in ethics education proved to be well received by the participants, as well as how ethics training in prison might be used as an effective tool for moral development and reasoning, thereby rehabilitation.
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Notes
I will hereafter use offender and not prisoners unless as used from the original report or quotation used as a reference.
Ms. Prinsloo will conduct follow-ups, evaluations and assessment, as this study is part of her Doctorate study.
At the end of the training most of the participants did share with me what crimes they have committed, how they were bought up and some of their challenges in life. But this was in private (between myself and that individual participant) and others also asked if when they come out we could provide assistance for them to ask for forgiveness to their communities in order for them to work on developing their morals (Ubuntu).
Ubuntu as an African Philosophy was chosen because it is predominately practice within Sub-Saharan Africa (i.e. mostly by South African). Even though this ethical principle is practiced within Sub-Saharan Africa most of its values are shared amongst other Africans. It is assumed that, Ubuntu is known by South Africans (mostly with the indigenous communities) because it has been known to be part of the community’s culture and morals. Therefore, this principle was chosen based on the assumption that most of the inmate will be familiar with it even though they may not know how to define its values and virtues objectively, and this was noticed during the study.
This study was qualitative in nature and it was based on a Formative assessment. Moreover, based on personal observation of the participants as well as myself and the other facilitator this method on practicing the values was deemed effective in that it made us more conscious of how we act and conduct ourselves and in being able to evaluate situation and learning to apply Ubuntu in every situations and this was the same feedback we received from the participants too. Obviously this may differ once participants are outside and are facing different life challenges, this we will not know as yet because many participants are still inside the Correctional Services. Therefore, based on the observations from this study, we (author and other facilitator) realized the need to continue with this study as long as the Department of Correctional Service grants us the permission to do so and possibly do more scientific studies as a build up to this study with inclusion to various assessment tools; and possibly have the study done across different Correctional Services in SA, to evaluate effectiveness of this programme in depth and come up with a more in depth ethics training programmed as a tool for moral development and ethical decision-making for offenders.
An example of this is what is often said by many (black) South African’s how through Ubuntu (friendliness, caring, etc.) they opened their hearts to strangers (Caucasians and other foreigner- Africans) and they were oppressed in the process, speaking of Apartheid and other factors at play post-apartheid which are leading to unemployment etc. Therefore, in this way Ubuntu can be used against or to bring a negative effect, because it is easier to misunderstand and misuse Ubuntu in general and this has been noted throughout SA’s history even amongst black South Africans.
I am not certain about the types informal and formal moral development programs and/ or teaching that SA is working on, although what is notable is that the number of research studies on moral development is starting to increase and Ethics of Ubuntu is becoming popular choice in SA, again.
The success here is based on the participants’ feedback with practical applications of the values, participants starting their own Ubuntu training in their cells, prison, and the two participants’ presentations at the 6th IAEE Conference in South Africa. Unfortunately, success will not be rated based on follow-ups of outside experiences (short-term – more than 6 months and long-term- more than a year and above) as at the time of witting this paper this was not possible or any formal assessments, hopefully any formal assessment will be conducted by Ms. Prinsloo for her overall Doctorate study.
Unfortunately, I will not be showing results in this paper through the transcripts taken during this pilot study, as these will be reported in Ms. Prinsloo’s Thesis.
In SA currently there are no informal and/ or formal moral development courses even though the Government (in different ministries) does speak about moral degeneration and the need to have moral regeneration some in their policies and others in their speeches. Apart from that there are researchers working on research studies in moral development and most of the work seem to be in early stages.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Ms. JM Prinsloo for allowing her to take part in her Doctorate research studies and the opportunity to develop a training programme of this magnitude. The author will also like to thank all the participants from the JHB Correctional Services (PAR Ubuntu group) for their time, openness, knowledge they shared through their life experiences and constructive time spent together. Lastly, to thank all the JHB Correctional Service officials and Social Workers who made it possible that the process ran smoothly, and opened their doors to assist whenever needed as well as ensuring the author’s safety and security.
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Ethics clearance was obtained from the Department of Correctional Services of the Republic of South Africa’s Research Ethics Committee, and participants’ informed consent was obtained prior to the study.
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Mnisi, F.M. Ethics education in prison: a pilot study on an ethics programme for offenders. International Journal of Ethics Education 5, 83–96 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40889-019-00081-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40889-019-00081-z