A Strategy on Seventh-day Adventist Church Involvement Toward the Social Reinsertion of Inmates of Tsiafahy Penitentiary, Madagascar

Abstract

One of the main challenges for the prisoners of Tsiafahy is social reintegration and the personal follow-up of their spiritual life, especially when the sentence is over. This requires valuable work, unity, and strict cooperation with the Adventist Church in Antananarivo and the surrounding area, especially the Adventist Church near the site of the Tsiafahy prison. The aim of the project was to maintain the spiritual life of prisoners who have served their sentence and got out safely or prisoners incarcerated because of calumny who, after passing through trial and the issue of order, are acquitted, meaning that there is no criminal record on their bulletin No. 3. Thus, they will continue to remain with God, go deeper in their life of faith and directly apply the fundamental truths they have learned in their lives. Those truths will make them decent and reliable people in their community instead of being a burden to others again. The results of the inquiry revealed that the challenge was that most of these prisoners who are released from the Tsiafahy prison do not attend the Adventist Church. This is in spite of the fact that they were well trained in the Scriptures while in prison, through daily Sabbath School lessons, Bible memory verses, morning devotionals, worship, and service on Sabbaths. They had known well Seventh-day Adventist Church’s fundamental beliefs. The present researcher, who is the chaplain for prison ministry in the Central Malagasy Conference with his team, through his periodic interventions, contributed to the change for the improvement of the behavior of the prisoners. This state of affairs was quickly noticed by the prison service officers who wrote favorable reports to their superiors concerning the prisoners in question. During the presidential pardons at the national celebration in June and at the end of the year, precisely in December, these prisoners had their sentences reduced or even to be released in a very short time, which allows the surrounding churches to prepare for their reception before sending them back to their families of origin. Seasonal or short-term work helped them not to be a heavy burden for the church members before they were coming back home.