Prague, Sept 6 (CTK) – People often do not settle their affairs before they start serving a prison sentence and their debts are growing during the prison stay, which makes their restart in life even harder after the release, daily Pravo writes on Tuesday.
When these people are released from prison, they are immediately burdened with distraint orders and high debts that do not allow them to have official work contracts because nearly all of the income would be taken away from them, the paper writes.
“Two thirds of the prisoners who have debts got indebted during the time when they were convicted and imprisoned,” said Petr Schneedorfler, from the Lighthouse group that provides social assistance to prisoners.
Schneedorfler said prisoners usually owe about 250,000 crowns, though sometimes it is a far higher sum. He estimated that some 70,000 distraint orders for the seizure of property of prisoners were issued in the country.
The Prison Service has no information about the debts of the prison inmates, the paper writes.
Most debts, if they were dealt with in time, would not become so high.
A man who was sentenced to prison owned a flat in Most, west Bohemia, but still had to pay a mortgage of 770,000 crowns. He stopped paying the mortgage, when he was in prison. The bank seized the flat and sold it in an auction for 160,000 crowns. The man now owes 600,000 crowns because he pays a fine of 400 crowns per each day.
Schneedorfler said the man could have sold the flat before turning up in prison for approximately 400,000 crowns and his family would have been willing to help him pay the rest of the debt so that he would not have to pay a fine.
Not all prisoners are repeat violent criminals: they were sent to prison because they caused a serious road accident due to their exceptional failure, because they had an emotional fight with a person with whom they shared the household that resulted in a tragedy, or because they committed fraud, embezzlement or got involved with corrupt groups, Pravo writes.
These people had a flat or house, paid their mortgages and bills, and drove their children to school before they ended up in prison. And they mostly would like to return to their normal life after their release.
“All of a sudden, their life falls apart. They must pack their things and start serving the prison sentence,” Schneedorfler said.
He said people do not have time to settle their affairs or they forget to do it or they do not care under the pressure of the circumstances in such a situation. “This concerns for example old debts and unpaid insurance payments,” he added.
“There is the Probation Service. Somewhere they try to help more, somewhere less. But the increasing debts of the inmates are seldom dealt with,” Schneedorfler said.
One man was well prepared for the serving of his prison sentence but he forgot to suspend his trade licence, which meant that he had to cover advance health insurance payments. He did not do so and his debt kept increasing.
Along with the prison stigma, debts often prevent people from leading a normal life after their release and they more or less force them to do something illegal, which gets them to prison sooner or later again. For a former prisoner, it is a problem to get a job even if companies are seeking labourers.
Miroslav, 35, who received a suspended sentence for stealing electronics from a firm, said he even could not be a garbage collector because his criminal record was not clean and the collectors get keys from houses.
Miroslav, who had been a successful financial consultant, managed to have his punishment finally deleted from his criminal record and he is a labourer in a car company, Pravo writes.
Schneedorfler said 85 percent of the prison inmates have only elementary or low apprentice education and they do not understand legal documents concerning debts. Unfortunately, the prison staff do not understand them either, he said.
