Marek Lagodzinski
Ashoka Fellow dal 2008   |   Poland

Marek Lagodzinski

Slawek Foundation / Fundacja Slawek
Marek Lagodzinski is introducing a new approach to prisoner rehabilitation that helps prisoners reconnect with their families and with life outside prison well before they finish their sentences. His…
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Marek Łagodziński wprowadza nowe podejście do resocjalizacji, pomagając więźniom odnowić więzi z rodzinami i rozpocząć życie poza więzieniem zanim zakończą swoje wyroki. Fundacja Sławek zapewnia szkolenia zawodowe i miejsce do zamieszkania dla więźniów na przepustkach i już po opuszczeniu zakładów, ale co najważniejsze daje wsparcie psychologiczne i motywację, aby rozpocząć nowe życie daleko od więzienia.

This description of Marek Lagodzinski's work was prepared when Marek Lagodzinski was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship in 2008.

Introduzione

Marek Lagodzinski is introducing a new approach to prisoner rehabilitation that helps prisoners reconnect with their families and with life outside prison well before they finish their sentences. His Slawek Foundation provides practical job training and placement for prisoners and ex-prisoners, but more importantly, psychological support and motivation to begin new lives and stay out of prison.

La nuova idea

In Poland, as in many other countries, despite sporadic attempts to equip prisoners with skills relevant to their post-prison life, most leave prison ill equipped to lead normal lives, and many end up turning back to crime. Marek has designed a series of interventions to help prisoners successfully reintegrate into society following incarceration. His work is distinctive in its focus on the psychological and family needs of prisoners, and in its involvement of volunteer ex-prisoners. Current efforts to rehabilitate and reintegrate prisoners into society—whether led by the state or civil society—begin too late and fall well short of their ultimate aim: To prevent former prisoners from committing new crimes and ending up back in jail. Such efforts are almost exclusively service-oriented, providing ex-inmates with a bed to sleep in or a hot meal. Marek and his Slawek Foundation begin rehabilitation work with prisoners at the beginning of their sentence and continue to offer services for them and their families well after they are released. The foundation provides job skills and training for prisoners—including through a prisoner-run radio station—and also works to improve their psychological frame of mind and sense of self-worth through ex-prisoner testimonials, increased contact with family and the outside world, and one-on-one counseling and mediation. Prisoners participating in his programs gain a sense of hope that they can walk a new path and function in society—as fathers, as employees, and even managers, or as volunteers. Participants also tend to serve shorter sentences, and are less likely to return to prison. Already working in seventy prisons across Poland, Marek seeks to package his interventions to help other prisons across Poland and into Lithuania and Ukraine develop new standards of rehabilitation and reintegration. His work has been sanctioned by the Polish Prison Authority and more recently by the EU.

Il problema

There are 90,000 people living in prisons and other penitentiary institutions in Poland—representing one of the highest imprisonment rates among EU countries. Each year, thousands are released back into society where they face alienation from their families, discrimination from employers and law enforcement, and temptations to return to crime. Whether they have spent three months or thirty years in prison, many have internalized a criminal identity and have a defeatist attitude towards rehabilitation and reform. Most lack the skills and discipline to find steady work. It is no surprise that an estimated 40 percent of Polish ex-prisoners end up back in prison within three years.

The typical prison experience does not prepare inmates for life after prison. Prisoners are neither equipped with the practical skills nor the psychological mindset that will facilitate their transition to ordinary post-prison life. Quite the opposite: Cramped, deteriorating, and de-humanizing prison conditions seem to worsen a prisoner’s chances to return to society a rehabilitated citizen. Prison staff taunt and abuse prisoners, manipulating power hierarchies and perpetuating prisoner feelings of low self-worth. Prison gangs encourage violence and force inmates to become hardened and only look out for themselves to survive.

In addition, little is done to help prisoners maintain family ties while incarcerated. Some prisoners get little more than a few hours of contact with their children each year. The most stabilizing force of reintegration—the relationship with family—is not nurtured and often falls apart completely. All this leads to a deep sense of hopelessness and worthlessness. Without continued family ties or any other role model or positive presence in their lives, prisoners deteriorate psychologically and lose their will to reform their ways. Many turn to alcohol smuggled into prisons as their only respite—it is estimated that 80 percent of prisoners in Poland are alcoholics.

The State is officially responsible for rehabilitating prisoners, but this is often treated as a formality that begins just months before a prisoner is released and does not continue post-release. And while there are a number of organizations in Poland that work to support released prisoners, nearly all of them are service oriented, providing temporary housing, food, toothbrushes, and other “hand-outs.” None address prisoners’ psychological needs or work with prisoner families. None, until now, have sought to comprehensively prepare prisoners for independent living and to take their lives into their own hands.

La strategia

Marek has designed a broad array of activities to equip prisoners to lead satisfying and productive lives after their incarceration. In addition to job skills training and job placement, Marek’s strategy is distinctive in its focus both on the psychological well-being of prisoners and the family and community relationships necessary to support their transition into post-prison life. Marek works with prisoners at various stages of their prison and post-prison experience, with ex-prisoners playing a large role in the success of his strategy.

Nearly twenty years ago, moved by the stories of prisoners he met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting held at a prison outside of Warsaw, Marek began inviting recently released prisoners to work for him at his garage. He would informally train them as car mechanics and on the basics of running a business—everything from dealing with customers to tracking financials. In 1998, after having employed a dozen prisoners, in addition to working in some way with hundreds more, Marek decided to be more strategic about how he could help integrate former prisoners into society and reduce the likelihood of recidivism. Employing a handful of ex-prisoners at his garage was not enough. He thus founded a civic organization, Slawek—named after the first former prisoner he employed—to develop and test better ways to rehabilitate and reintegrate prisoners into post-prison life.

The Slawek Foundation addresses both the practical and psychological needs of prisoners. Marek believes prisoners must have more than just jobs when they leave prison: They also need family and community support networks—people who believe in them, who depend on them, and who can provide help in difficult times. Finally, prisoners must have a hopeful, positive attitude about their abilities and their futures. An array of programs, including job training, ex-prisoner testimonials and counseling, off-site field trips for current prisoners, and one-on-one family counseling, empower prisoners to lead fulfilling lives post-incarceration.

Giving prisoners work is nothing new. All around the world societies use prison labor for everything from picking up trash on the side of highways to making license plates. However, training prisoners in skilled labor, and giving them opportunities while still incarcerated to work in realistic environments outside prison, and to perform community service, is new. For example, Marek has designed prisoner-run radio programs hosted on the internet that broadcast music, news, legal counsel, talk shows, and most recently, e-learning programs in partnership with Warsaw University and a Catholic high school in Warsaw. The 24-hour radio is managed and maintained by prisoners and former prisoners working as volunteers at the Slawek Foundation. Working for the radio teaches technical skills, team skills, and more importantly, gives prisoners a sense of ownership over their work.

Marek also designed the “Guardian Angels” initiative to help prepare prisoners serving long sentences get accustomed with life outside the walls before their sentence is complete. Selected prisoners receive a “pass” to spend a day outside prison walls, along with a volunteer ex-prisoner and chaperone, in order to learn (or re-learn) basic functioning skills, perform community service, and begin looking for work. The nearly 250 prisoners in Warsaw who have participated describe the experience as “life changing.” Finally, the Slawek Foundation provides ex-prisoners with skills training, including computers, language, painting, plumbing, and various temporary job assignments to help them be more valuable on the job market. The foundation’s building, donated by the Polish Railways, was entirely renovated by prisoners who learned on-site construction skills. Former prisoners also receive job placement assistance. Today as many as ten former prisoners and their families come through the foundation seeking help each day.

While Marek’s job training efforts are more strategic and effective than most current State-run efforts, what most distinguishes his work is a focus on the psychological and interpersonal needs of prisoners entering post-prison life. One initiative in particular—“Testimonials”—relies on ex-prisoners who tour prisons telling compelling stories about their fall into crime and subsequent rise out of it. Having lived in prison—some for decades—gives the storytellers credibility unmatched even by members of the clergy. Each story has a similar message: I have been where you are, and I know how difficult it sometimes seems, but do not lose hope, it is possible to start a new life, to contribute something to the world, to love and to be loved. More than 100 former prisoners have been telling their stories in thirty prisons across Poland over the last decade. Some have begun organizing theatre performances to tell stories through drama. Audiences also learn about the Slawek Foundation and the assistance it offers in making the transition.

Finally, Marek and his foundation work to help repair and rebuild family relationships among prisoners. Family bonds are always strained or broken because of a prisoner’s criminal activities and subsequence absence. Yet family plays a critical part in a prisoner’s motivation to reform and successful re-entry into society. Good family ties also reduce rates of alcoholism and recidivism. In addition, the more prisoners that have homes to return to, the fewer that will end up living on the streets or in “half-way” houses and other state institutions. Marek has recruited volunteer family counselors and psychologists and worked to grant them the same kind of one-on-one access (inside prison cells) previously limited to lawyers and clergy. Such counseling and mentoring provides individualized attention to prisoners and again represents a commitment to each prisoner’s capacity for change. Since 1998 over 100 families have benefited from family mediation.

Marek and the Slawek Foundation are at a turning point, poised to take these activities across Poland in a more systematic fashion. Already, fifteen prisons in the Warsaw vicinity have fully incorporated his efforts and Poland’s Central Prison Authority has sanctioned his work. Marek has worked with more than 3,000 prisoners since the foundation’s inception. Prison administrators and guards have noticed changes in prisoners and also in their own behavior towards and expectations of inmates. In 2005 the Slawek Foundation received a multiyear grant from the European Union to test his model in seventy prisons across Poland with the aim of national impact. Since then, Marek has traveled extensively, meeting with prison authorities and other citizen organizations to found a federation of organizations to work with and for prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families, and propose legislation change that promotes rehabilitation and reintegration.

Marek’s goal is to develop a manual of best practices and case studies that he can take to prisons across Poland who want to replicate his work. In five years, he hopes to launch his initiatives in all of Poland’s sixteen regions and reach 10 percent of Poland’s prisoners in ten years. He has already begun working across the border, meeting with the Ministers of Justice and directors of prison services in Ukraine and Lithuania.

La persona

Marek grew up among street gangs in Warsaw, but the values he learned in his home prevented him from choosing a path of crime like many of his peers. In the 1980s he was active in Poland’s Solidarity movement, often helping families of his convicted friends. In free Poland, Marek founded an enterprise trading in non-metal materials and later opened a car workshop.

In 1988 Marek admitted to having a serious alcohol problem. He began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, one being coincidentally held in a prison. Marek was stunned by the prison conditions, the lack of resources available to help prisoners rehabilitate and re-enter society, and the defeatist attitude of the prisoners. For nearly a decade Marek regularly attended AA meetings inside prisons around Warsaw, listening to prisoner stories and providing informal counseling. During this time he also helped prisoners find work after their sentences, many at his car workshop.

In 1998 he formally registered the Slawek Foundation to systematically address the problem of prisoner reintegration and recidivism. In part because of his own bout with alcoholism, Marek believes every person is capable of reform if provided with a strong community of support. He is driven by compassion and empathy for all human beings who he says deserve to live a decent life and have a second chance no matter what they did in the past.

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