Learning to Become Someone Else: Prison Education, Identity Reconstruction, and Desistance among Former Prisoners in Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Prison education is seen as a way to rehabilitate people, but little is known about what it means to former prisoners in low- and middle-income countries or how long its effects last. Pakistan’s prisons carry a colonial punitive legacy and hold about 150% of their capacity. They offer literacy, vocational, and religious education with few resources, and former prisoners’ own views of this education have not been studied. This study asked how former prisoners in Lahore and Sargodha, Punjab, understood the meaning, motives, and post-release effects of prison education. Fifteen former prisoners took part in semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The data were analyzed with reflexive thematic analysis and read through Empowerment Theory, Desistance Theory, and Convict Criminology. Education has helped the participants to heal their moral and psychological wounds, develop an identity that is not associated with crime, and restore dignity, a family role and a place in their community, participants shared. These gains were weakened by limited access, outdated curricula, discriminatory hiring, and stigma. Prison education can change people, but after release the change is easily lost. It will remain a limited value in Pakistan until the access is changed, curriculum is improved, and the recognition of skills and/or employment restrictions.