Windhoek — In his view nobody is a born criminal, though many people are sometimes very close to committing a crime. This is the opinion of the country representative of the Hanns Seidel Foundation, Wolfgang Kleine.

He was the guest speaker at the organization Criminals Return to Society (CRIS) on Friday when a large number of students graduated in computer skills and designing.

"We are not always observing the traffic lights, for instance, and suddenly someone is killed. How often are we driving with the one glass of wine too much, which is the one that reduces our reaction? Are we always paying our taxes correctly?" he told the CRIS graduates.

There are various reasons why people become a criminals by chance.

"Thus, don't see these people as having made a negative choice only. Rehabilitation is one of the key words for a successful society; afford those who failed, a second chance. I know in the meantime a substantial number of ex-prisoners, members of CRIS, who deserve to get a second chance," he said.

The re-integration of those who failed is one of the essentials of a functioning society.

"Humans should never be regarded as lost once they made a mistake. CRIS people paid for their failure in a very hard currency, having had to sit for a certain period behind bars. They have been taught a lesson," he said.

Rehabilitation should be part of the programme. "Even if culture and prevailing traditions are not facilitating this, we should encourage the community, family, actually all of us, as being in charge of bringing the people back to the community as law-abiding citizens.

"Ex-prisoners need our support otherwise some of them will return to their business," he asserted.

There is another very important aspect of bringing people back into society - the economy.

"To prevent people from going back into their lawbreaking business is much cheaper than covering the costs of lawless activities. For the sake of making more profit in a commercialized world we should support the idea of rehabilitation," he said.

"Unfortunately, rehabilitation in Namibia is currently mainly done by private organizations like CRIS. We as citizens of this beautiful country should motivate the Government in these financially good days to spend more on rehabilitation," he claimed.

Due to a lack of funds no detailed research could be done so far.

"The only figure we got is that only a few CRIS people return to the list of inmates. We see this as a success of the work of CRIS and we want to encourage all stakeholders to continue with the work, the support and sympathy for CRIS," he said.