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Instead of trying to persuade reluctant employers to give them work, ex-inmates should gear themselves up for self-employment. They can be their own bosses, and not be burdened by others’ negative perception
These last two weeks, local television and newspaper coverage has been focused to a large extent on Olivia Lewis and the buffed bodies of her accompanying dancers – the Jez and Joe duo (to apply gold body paint or not? What about Swarovski crystals on their chiselled cheek bones? Decisions, decisions) – but more about that later.
The television programmes about parole and the prison system, which preceded the all-encompassing Eurovision frenzy, were far more interesting. A good mix of crime victims, prison inmates and ex-convicts, lawyers, and counsellors spoke about the issues involved and expressed their points of view. There was the mother whose policeman son had been gunned down during a hold-up, his killer who is currently in jail pending an appeal and who was lamenting the fact that he had been given a life sentence, a partially-blind man who landed himself a prison sentence for some VAT offence, the ex-inmate who spoke about how hijacker Ali Rezaq claimed that he too was a victim of violence inflicted on his family.
Then there was the man who initially got sent to jail for some relatively minor offence – I believe it was not possessing a television licence – and then got caught up in drug-taking while in prison and ended up serving some 20 years behind bars. During these years the man cleaned himself up, attended several courses and obtained certificates in a number of disciplines and catering-related skills. Once he was released he set about seeking employment and applying for jobs. In one year alone he sent in over a 100 job applications. He was rejected for all of them.
This was met with great surprise by most of the members of the programme panel. They said that it was shocking that a person who had reformed and possesses all the necessary skills was not being discriminated against. Why didn’t society give him a second chance? Would his prison sentence always be held against him, excluding him permanently from all sorts of employment prospects? The people on the panel couldn’t seem to understand why the ex-inmate was finding it so hard on the outside and viewed his “unemployability” as an indictment of Maltese society – a hard-hearted one which was unwilling to take his rehabilitation into consideration and which had consigned him to the metaphorical scrap-heap.
While I wouldn’t dismiss these conclusions out of hand, I’d say that there’s a much more obvious reason for employers being reluctant to take on an ex-con, and it has more to do with reasons of competition than lack of compassion. Every year, university churns out thousands of graduates with degrees in a variety of disciplines. Other educational establishments also produce a fair crop of job-seekers with the necessary skills. Then there are all those people toiling away gaining experience in a particular area of expertise. All of them are competitors on the job market. When it comes to the crunch can you blame a prospective employer for preferring them instead of someone with a criminal record? When faced with two equally qualified candidates for a post, can you really find fault with the employer who opts for the candidate who hasn’t blotted his copybook? The people who moan about a harsh, unforgiving society ignore the fact that a lack of a criminal record is a qualification in itself, and possessing it puts one ahead of the competition. That is why many offenders find it so difficult to have a job – they have one less qualification than other competitors in the job market.
So what to do? It is widely accepted that employment is one of the most important factors in keeping ex-inmates from returning to prison. However it is evident that many employers are still reluctant to hire them.
This is not just the case in Malta. Even countries which have introduced measures to encourage the employment of ex-offenders have not had much success. The tax-credits available for companies which employ ex-offenders and the discounted insurance to help cover losses that might result from having such people on the payroll have been largely ignored. Legislation allowing the concealment of certain offences has been met with much criticism.
It seems to be an unsolvable problem. It will continue to be so if we continue to look at it from the employability perspective and in terms of how many employers are willing to take on ex-offenders. Instead of bemoaning the lack of employment opportunities and trying to persuade reluctant employers to give them work, ex-inmates should gear themselves up for self-employment. They can be their own bosses, not be put off by their own criminal record and not be burdened by others’ negative perception at them.
Back to the subject du jour. Olivia Lewis has returned to Malta and a warm welcome from her fans. Good for her. As an unashamed lover of pop songs and kitsch groups such as Abba, I’m not going to be one to object to a song which contains the rhyming but nonsensical words “vertigo” and “indigo”. If anything, the song takes me back to the wonderfully inane “Paradise” hit of the Eighties with the memorable lines, “You kiss me once/ I’ll kiss you twice/ As I gaze into your eyes I realise it’s paradise.”
I quite like Olivia too. She sticks to doing her thing and isn’t one of those media personalities who are constantly pushing their gilded nipples or six-pack sheen into your face, so you start feeling this desperate need to run away and hide just to get away from the unrelenting exhibitionism of it all. I’m afraid that Joe Chetcuti – one of Olivia’s accompanying dancers – has gone into overdrive here. I don’t know if it’s entirely his fault, but after all the coverage he’s received during this last fortnight – and due to the lack of coverage of most of his torso – many of us have come away with the distinct impression that Chetcuti is trying to emulate the loin cloth-sporting John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”. Which is all very well if you want to be remembered as a leaping Adonis but not much else.
Just in case you thought that this was the opinion of the Maltese prude society, I am relaying what a good friend heard on Radio Montecarlo while he was driving on the highway from Calabernardo to Taormina. A listener phoned in and said “L’Eurovision si conferma il festival del kitsch, non guarderei la finale nemmeno se mi pagate… pero’ valeva la pena di vedere la preliminare – almeno per vedere il maltese che suonava il violino in mutande…” (The Eurovision is the festival of kitsch. I wouldn’t watch the final if you paid me. However watching the final was worth it – if only to see the Maltese boy playing the violin in his underpants).
Please spare us some blushes next time round – give us more violin and less abdominals.
cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt |
