Successful rehabilitation leads to safer communities

Restart started providing rehabilitation services inside places of detention in 2005 based on the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) in order to reduce recidivism among prisoners by improving their behaviors, skills, mental health, social functioning, and access to education and employment.

Objectives

• To provide extensive rehabilitation programs to the prisoner so that he is made capable of returning to society and functioning as a law-abiding member of the community.
• To provide training programs in order to prepare the prisoners to be productive members of society.
• To support the social reintegration of prisoners into the community.
• To reduce reoffending which mean less victims of crime and less social and economic cost to the community. 

Target Groups

Since People in prison retain their human rights and fundamental freedoms, Restart provides rehabilitation services to all inmates with special focus on vulnerable persons, such as survivors of torture, inmates with mental health disorders, vulnerable to radicalization, refugees…

Programs

1 - Individual assessments and screening approaches:

Restart’s specialists administer tests on all levels at baseline (pre-test), after a certain number of sessions (follow-up test), and at the end of treatment (post-test) to track the improvement of the inmates’ condition.

• Risk Assessment for Radicalization into Violent Extremism
• Harvard Trauma Questionnaire & Hopkins Symptom Checklists for Anxiety and Depression
• Nursing assessment
• Medical assessment
• Psychiatric assessment
• Somatization and stress assessment
• Assessment of pain level and its interaction with mood, thoughts, activity, sleep…
• Legal assessment
• Individual social assessment
• Family social assessment

2 - Rehabilitation services:

Restart Center adopts a range of measures to reduce reoffending. These include services provided inside prison, and at Restart Center premises to prepare offenders to successfully reintegrate into the community after release. 

Those measures include the provision of the following services:

• Social intervention
  1. Individual intervention
  2. Family intervention
• Psychological intervention to address the psychological causes of criminal behavior
• Psychiatric Services
• Physiotherapy
• Medical services
• Provision of Core relief items and equipment
• Legal services
• Awareness-raising
• Educational and Recreational activities
• Vocational programs
• Faith based interventions 

3 - Infrastructural work, equipment, and living conditions:

Living conditions in a prison are among the chief factors determining one’s self-esteem and dignity. People detained in humane detention conditions will be more willing and able to respond to rehabilitative programs

1. Establishment of medical isolation rooms in Kobbe prison:
   Restart Center established 10 medical isolation rooms, where prisoners who exhibit COVID-19 symptoms could be held, safely, apart from the main prison population while their tests are being completed at the governmental hospital.
   
2. Establishment of a dental clinic
3. Establishment of a sewing factory
4. Establishment of a water treatment plant
5. Establishment of a library
6. Provision of industrial washing machines and dryers
7. Installation of sterilizing booths at the Palace of Justice, Tripoli, Zgharta Prison, Halba Prison, and Batroun Prison 
8. Providing inmates with phone tele-cards
9. Providing prisons in North Lebanon with Personal Protective Equipment and with Hygiene and Disinfection kits
10. Renovation of cells in terms of electricity, sanitation, sewage, ventilation, lighting, painting, and ceiling treatment

4 - Health monitoring system:

Restart developed the health monitoring tools to enhance health data management in prisons in order to improve prisoner access to care, reduce the spread of communicable diseases, and improve health system efficiency.

5 - Capacity building to law enforcement

Restart conducted capacity-building workshops with different Lebanese security forces on the following:

• Investigative interviewing for criminal cases
• UN basic principles on the role of lawyers, Istanbul protocol and other tools for detecting addressing and reporting torture cases.

6 - Manuals and publications 

• A unified protocol for health management and primary health care services provision.
• A guide on building the capacity of law enforcement personnel in places of detention.
• A guide on the best practices for prison management and practical recommendations.