When we reached the East Dam, brothers in Long Ke were already there, waiting for their relatives. Then they assisted their parents, wives and siblings to overcome a long steep path (see Appendix 3) for entering Long Ke Village. Shu Keung, an inmate who had been addicts for over ten years and had been to different institutions including DC, TC, DATC and gaol, told me that his mother call the police and arrested him twice before he come to Long Ke. His wrath was busted when he knew his mother ‘betrayed’ him. “However, I realized that what had my mother done is for my own good. She was not trying to lock me in jail and leave me, because I saw her walk difficultly for such long distance with her stick to come to Long Ke for just seeing me.” He said. And he promised himself that he would not abuse drugs again, simply for his mother’s move. Yet, Sister Lai, the mother of an inmate was very touched, “my son never fill rice for me at home!” she said.
Indeed, family members are the most common significant others to a person. The child who exhibits no affective, or emotional bonds to significant others and who is not particularly sensitive to his or her own feelings, may feel, in Hirschi’s (1969) words, ‘free to deviate.’ Furthermore, family detachment, including intra-family conflict and lack of affection are predictive of delinquent conduct (Voorhis, Cullen, Mathers, & Garner, 1988). In contrary, the closer a child’s relationship with his/her parents, the more intimate and communication between both parties. It will result the less likely the child grows to be delinquent (Rankin & Kern, 1994). Therefore, I believe the stress that Wu Oi has put, in encouraging inmates to restore and restart nurturing their past broken family relationships, is playing a decisive role in helping them to resist future temptation and thus prevent recidivism.
Integration of the Two Aspects
Among the last six weeks I had participated the Friday night ‘gospel meeting’ hold by the Wu Oi Centre in Shun Tin Estate. Although the evangelistic meeting was said to be open for those drug addicts, juvenile delinquents and other who may be interested, the relatives of inmates in different treatment centre is the main character (or target group) I may say. During the meeting, the relatives sang evangelistic songs, listen to some pastor and learn how and why to pray. Different graduates are invited to back to the centre to share their precious experience of walking through the shade. By seeing and listening to the guest’s past, the relatives are able to gain confidence and become more willing to cooperate with Wu Oi for assisting their family members. Moreover, they are given opportunity to study sentences from the Bible (Christianity) while receiving comfort and faith from the meeting. Such religious ‘building’ or ‘shaping’ is critical in forming constraints between the inmate (individual) and his family, also his church life (society). This is also a remarkable difference from other institutions.
To effectively support the families, we indeed indirectly support the inmates. When others think as we do, we are not only appreciating their attitudes but also make positive inferences about their character (Montoya & Horton, 2004). Inmates in Long Ke studies Bible three times a day, seven days a week, if their family are having none or little knowledge or not believe in God at all, what will happen? Study from Skitka and others (2005) states that if those dissimilar attitudes pertain to our strong moral convictions, we dislike and distance ourselves from them all the more. Since belief belongs to the core value of a person, therefore, the discrepancy upon inmates and their relatives would definitely enlarge. Yet, while studies of newlyweds reveal that similar attitudes and values help bring couples together and predict their satisfaction (Luo & Klohnen, 2005), Singh and Ho (2000) concluded that dissimilar attitudes depress liking more than similar attitudes enhance it. Since inmates have to be separated from his girl friend or even his wife for at least a year, after such a long period of time if the couples found their life style are not in harmony with each other, the intimate relationship may be damaged even collapse. The unstable state of an important relationship then straightly increase strain and stress to the graduates and may prone to their relapse as if the situation is beyond their mental capacity.
Difficulties Encountered by the Staff
In Christianity we oppose abusing drugs, so we have gospel detoxification centres like Wu Oi. Nevertheless, in adopting the idea of Christianity we could not just take some of it instead of taking it as a whole set of moral belief. Cigarette, for example, is also prohibited in the village because of its nature is the same as abusing drugs for seeking pleasure and escaping pressures. In contrary DATCs under CSD allows its inmates to smoke, to have magazine with girls in bikini, to watch TV opera, etc. Due to the discrepancy of rules and expectations of inmates, argues has become daily routine among newcomers and coworkers.
Yet, the coworkers also found difficulties when facing brothers with different purposes to come to Long Ke Village. “Attitudes make critical difference between success and fail” said Yiu, a graduate and now a volunteer in Long Ke. The experience of him and observations form others had convinced me to his stand point. Yiu disclose that he had been to jail when he was young, at that period of time he just want to get out from the institution, like many of the brothers in Long Ke now do. But after he finally got released, he quickly fell back to his wicked lifestyle. “So do the brothers in Long Ke, eleven out of ten of them with this attitude gone back to drugs soon after their graduation”.
The favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something defines a person’s attitude (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), and it often rooted in beliefs and exhibited feelings, and inclinations to act (Edwars, 1990). For those who wish to leave Long Ke as soon as possible, their affect towards the institution must be worse compare with their ‘own life’ outside. Even though, Mr. Lee (Fai Ping) claims that for every single brother come to ask for help (including those appointed by probation officer), they conduct interviews to see whether there are voluntary. However, this procedure was doomed to its failure. Many of the brothers are indeed forced to come by external factors, say, with a Probation Order (PO) or a debilitated body that need a rest from drugs. To serve a PO in Long Ke is definitely more comfortable than under the strict control of CSD in gaol. Serious physical symptoms had shown up as warning to stop the use of drug like necrosis of vessels and decrease of the capacity of bladder. All these reasons forced the participants to lie for a chance to resolve their difficult conditions but obviously they do not genuinely want to quit drugs.
It’s difficult to manage when people were having diverse mind. Some may came for a several month and leave just after their physical condition has become better, and when they left, they took some morale with them. After all the coworkers’ effort seem to be wasted. It is even more challenging to alter ones attitude from suffering penal into experiencing life change, because people with such attitude usually do not cooperate well, they do not want to be helped. Nevertheless, letting people realize they do need help is much harder but also more essential in a program than assist those who want to be saved. That means coworkers have to put extra proportion of time on these brothers and intensified their workload.
Limitations & Recommendations
Psychological needs, physical dependence, peer influence, dozens of reasons that people try to explain why a person turns into an addict. In refer to many Long Ke brothers’ personal experience, I would conclude the peer influence as the trigger point for the first ingestion (including relapse), and the psychological dependence as the strong bind for continue abusing (also responsible to the increasing dosage of intake). As I have illustrated in the former parts, Wu Oi has demonstrated a wonderful distinction practice in response to psychological dependence (tough willpower founded on faith in Jesus and family support). Through the work of differential association theorist we may know that “people initially have both deviant and non-deviant peers. After instrumental conditioning (cumulated feedbacks from surrounding), the balance may shift to one group over the others.” (Alers & Sellers, 2009). With no doubt, regular church life, faith and family support could resist temptation, but it was not a bacterin that could provide life long protection under whatever condition once it was planted.
According to the Narcotics Division of Security Bureau (2011), among all reported persons in 2008 (13,871), 2009 (13,256) and 2010 (11,880), over 75% of them were under the educational attainment of lower secondary, meanwhile, 22% of them fail in the category of no schooling, kindergarten or primary. The situation was even worse in previously reported person. These facts reveal that education do have some influence on ones’ relapse. While educational attainment directly constrained what occupation that one could apply for, those graduates would easily return to a position that rounded by drug users. Eight hours a day five days a week, people usually stay for more than 40 hours in workplace, in contrast, only a few hours was spent in church with ‘church friends’. As result, the duration and yet maybe together with the intensity of interplay among brothers and their coworkers would override that between they and church. At first they may resist temptations from other, but how long could it last for? People turn to crime “because of contacts with criminal patterns and also because of isolation from anti-criminal patterns.” (Sutherland, 1947). Flooding in such undesirable environment, graduates may easily relapse over time.
In Long Ke, inmates do have regulated daily routine, including farming, horticulture and reading the Bible; however, probably due to the scarcity of resources, Wu Oi’s treatment program does not include much education or vocational training. In spite of the possibility for some of them may continue studying horticulture and develop it into their career, but this proportion is very limited. In opposite, the DATCs under the CSD provide work therapy and job training for their inmates. Inmates are assigned to work which is commensurate with their capabilities, skills and physical fitness. Yet adult inmates are enabled to attend educational courses including English, Chinese, Mathematics, self and social development and computer subjects on a voluntary basis (Hong Kong Correctional Services, 2011). Therefore, I suggest Wu Oi Centre should provide systematic educational/vocational courses for its inmates, in order to assist them to escape the vicious circle after graduation.
Last but not the least, the problem of conformity and cohesion must also be discussed. Conformity is a change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure, while acceptance is a kind of conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure (Nail & others, 2000). Sometimes we genuinely believe in what the group has persuaded us to do. Inside the village coworkers, volunteers, and senior inmates would continuously share their beneficial experience through believing the God. Yet, for three times a day seven day a week all brothers are required to do Bible reading. Acceptance usually follows compliance; we may come to inwardly believe something we initially questioned. Moreover, group members who feel attracted to the group are more responsive to its influence (Sakurai, 1975). Sleep together, eat together, play together, brothers in the village easily make friends with each others. Human is social animal, no one like to be isolated. It turns out people do not like disagreeing with other group members. Fearing rejection by group members whom they allied, they allow them a certain power (Hogg, 2001). Unfortunately, neither through acceptance nor cohesion could a durable Christianity foundation be built in ones mind. And it must fail to resist back to back temptations inmates would faced everyday upon their graduation. Therefore, it is important for coworkers to remind and ensure brothers to growth spiritually in Christianity by their own will.
Conclusion
To sum up, apart from religious sanctions, God and the sentences in Bible also formed a bridge of miracle in the middle of inmates and their significant others. Yet, the bond holds and supports the inmates by generating a common belief, a set of conventional moral attitudes. As a result, the gospel rehabilitation treatment not only helps the inmates to abstain from substances and drugs, it also make fruitful contributes in reintegrating the inmates back to our society. All in all, regardless to what the participants may real want from the program, once they are in the site, it creates opportunity for God to start his work, so the ministry was valuable to continue but maybe more voluntary workers are needed in order to influence and reform new brothers more efficiently.
References
Alkers, R. L., & Sellers, C. S. (2009). Criminological theories: Introduction, evaluation, and application. New York: Oxford.
Baier, C. J., & Wright, B. R. E. (2001). ‘If you love me, keep my commandments’: A meta-analysis of the effect of religion on crime. Journal of Research on Crime and Delinquency, 38, 3-21.
Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Edwards, K. (1990). The interplay of affect and cognition in attitude formation and change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 202-216.
Hirschi, T. (1969). Cause of delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hogg, M. A. (2001). A social identity theory of leadership. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 184-200.
Hong Kong Correctional Services. (2011). Penal management. Retrived from http://www.csd.gov.hk/english/ins/ins_pen/ins_pen.html
Luo, S., & Klohnen, E. C. (2005). Assortative mating and marital quality in newlyweds: A couple-centered approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 304-326.
Matza, D., & Sykes, G. (1961). Juvenile delinquency and subterranean values. American Sociological Review, 26, 712-719.
Montoya, R. M., & Horton, R. S. (2004). On the importance of cognitive evaluation as a determinant of interpersonal attraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 696-712.
Nail, P. R., MacDonald, G., & Levy, D. A. (2000). Proposal of a four-dimensional model of social response. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 454-470.
Narcotics Division of Security Bureau (2011). Newly/previously reported drug abusers by age group by educational attainment. Retrived from http://www.nd.gov.hk/statistics_list/doc/en/t6.pdf
Sakurai, M. M. (1975). Small group cohesiveness and detrimental conformity. Sociometry, 38, 340-357.
Singh, R., & Ho, S. J. (2000). Attitudes and attraction: A new test of the attraction, repulsion and similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry hypotheses. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 197-211.
Skitka, L. J., Bauyman, C.W., & Sargis, E. G. (2005). Moral conviction: Another contributor to attitude strength or something more? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 895-917.
Sutherland, E. H. (1947). Principles of criminology. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
