Navigating the Uncertainties: A Study of the Challenges Women Offenders Experience Post Prison Release

Life in prison offers a different environment where one’s habits are transformed towards integration into prison culture, pushing aside the community culture outside prison walls. Upon release, an ex-offender's status often rooted in their criminal record faces jeopardized perception by common people. This perception deepens and solidifies when those ex-offenders try to reintegrate the society with a shortage of savings, limited ability to produce income, few social supports, and an overall lack of life skills to face these challenges. Their new social identity can face significant discrimination and social deprivation affecting successful community reintegration. We discuss the concept of the well-being of ex-detainees, where emotional well-being is believed to lead to resilience and better integration in society. An individual is connected to society through the relationships they have with others and, social capital refers to the natural or possible resources that result from membership in a supporting group that shares collective capital. Having a connection to others facilitates the internalization of societal norms and constrains the extent to which the individual deviates from societal norms. Research supports these theories in concluding that such connections may exert a protective influence, in particular, against offending behaviour and drug abuse, and that social capital is related to less crime in neighbourhoods and resilience to crime. This research explores the challenges females experience when integrating the society and studies the risk and protective which in turn may influence their resilience and successful integration. We are particularly interested in the female ex-detainees as the increasing number of female offenders across the island urges the need to unveil the factors that influence the social integration of female offenders in Mauritian society.