Paramilitary
ex-prisoners struggle to find employment and a normal life Life outside
the Maze can be tough. The difficulties span everything from qualifying
for a taxi licence to adopting a child or getting a travel visa
From IRISH TIMES August 5th, 2000
Jackie Anderson wants a job. His CV may not be lengthy, the gap in his employment
record less than impressive, but the 39-year-old has done courses in weight
training and practised yoga and would like to be paid to pass on these skills
- skills honed in an H-Block.
A UVF member, Anderson walked free from the Maze under the early release
scheme almost two years ago after serving five years of a 10-year sentence
for "getting caught with a bomb". Born and bred on the Shankill Road in
Belfast, he now spends most of his time there, in the West Belfast Athletic
and Cultural Society, set up by other ex-prisoners as a mini-recreational
centre.
Upstairs, the friendly former paramilitary works out in the red-and-white-painted
gym, where up to 100 locals pay the £1 entrance fee to use the facilities
three times a week. Downstairs there is a changing room, a shower and a
tiny sauna built by ex-prisoners who picked up joinery skills inside.
Women's groups do aerobics here and there is a pensioners' night. "We also get young kids in and teach them about our culture," he says, pointing at a colourful painting, a scene of the Battle of the Somme. "We hope we can give them direction, steer them away from drugs - as we're ex-prisoners they look up to us." The group is looking for funding and hoping to move
to a new premises where the members can set up proper weight-training courses
and offer employment to their own.
After the end of the initial celebratory mood, a phase still being experienced
by those recently released from the Maze, life outside is a struggle, according
to a group of loyalist ex-prisoners who sit in the centre chatting about
how they have coped since their release.
Some outside republican and loyalists communities may find it hard to muster
much sympathy for the estimated 20,000 or more people incarcerated for politically
motivated crime in Northern Ireland over the last 30 years. Their prison
records mean they will not secure jobs in the dominant public sector, and
few in the private sector are interested either. If their property was damaged,
they could be denied compensation.
The difficulties for ex-prisoners span everything from qualifying for a
taxi licence to adopting a child. Securing a visa to visit the US is virtually
impossible and should they visit the UK, they will at best be interrogated
by police and could be sent back home. What some might see as justifiable
barriers are viewed as discriminatory by others.
Cllr Michael Ferguson of republican prisoner support group Tar Anall said
these "vestiges of discrimination" might re-create "the conditions that caused the conflict in the first place. It is an issue that affects a significant percentage of the population." "After-care and resettlement of prisoners who wouldn't have been incarcerated except for the conflict is essential if we are to give everyone a stake in the peace process."
"Equality is key. Who is to say some victims are more worthy than others?"
The reality for ex-prisoners is that the only avenues open to them are provided
by their own communities. This includes work in local bars or nightclubs,
on building sites or in the numerous community groups that have sprung up
in Belfast in recent years.
Rosie McCorley (43) was the first republican woman to be released under
the Belfast Agreement after serving nine years of three concurrent sentences
of 22 years for possession of explosives and attempted murder. Since her
release two years ago she has worked in a bar, done some temping work secured
through a friend in a management consultancy firm and taught at a local
Irish-language school.
She has been in her current post at Coiste, the umbrella body for republican
prisoner-groups, for a year, where she witnesses first hand the difficulties
faced by ex-prisoners. "The whole irony is that the very nature of your arrest, the way you were processed and the laws that dictated how you were imprisoned and how you were actually released showed the political nature of your conviction . . . and yet when you walk out of the prison you are faced with these barriers that seem to fly in the face of the agreement."
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