Challenges Of Offender Reintegration Through Entrepreneurship Education

Abstract

The modern correctional system is aimed at providing law violators with useful skills to enable them attain self-satisfaction and self-sufficiency after their release. It is generally perceived that individuals who violate societal rules and regulation are mostly the unemployed segment of society. In this direction, correctional institution is expected to provide vocational skills through
entrepreneurship education to inmates as a strategy for the rehabilitation and reintegration of released inmates to the communities as more responsible members. The concern of this paper is to observe whether inmates who are released from incarceration have acquired some skills and the problem they are facing in trying to rejoin their families, friends, religious institutions and the community at large. The Nigerian correctional institution seems to perform below expectation considering the high rate of recidivism which shows that ex-convicts are finding it very difficult to be reintegrated. The paper is optimistic that inmates should be expose to  entrepreneurship education programme to enable them effectively reintegrated to the society. This paper attempts to explain the challenges of offender reintegration after released from correctional institution. The process of reintegration has not being a smooth one, because released offenders are confronted with many challenges that makes it very difficult for reintegration and may result in re-offending. Some of these challenges are; stigmatization, family, peer influence, lack of after-care services, etc. The paper recommends that qualitative rehabilitation programme through entrepreneurship education strategy can lead to effective reintegration of ex-convicts.