Arbi spent seven years in prison for drug trafficking. He imagined a board game to inform about the prison environment. - C. Allain / 20 Minutes

  • Detained for more than seven years, Arbi was released in March and left the Rennes Vezin prison center during confinement.
  • For years, this 40-year-old Rennais has been preparing a board game on the prison environment. It will be entitled "RPS" for "Additional remission of sentence".
  • He, who has been convicted of trafficking, hopes to make young people aware of the risks of delinquency.

It is the story of a man who claims to have changed. The story of a man whose life did not make a gift, but who wanted to bounce back. The story of a man who explains that he has reflected a lot in his 9 m² cell. At the height of his 40 years, Arbi presents well. Full of confidence, the one who arrived in France 25 years ago to flee Albania has just been released from prison, after more than seven years spent behind bars. While all of France was confined, Arbi finally found freedom in Rennes after a long sentence served for a large drug trafficking.

In prison, Arbi was moved to several detention centers in the West and spent a year in solitary confinement. His wrong? Having attended a supervisor for what he now calls "forbidden love". Just out of jail, the former detainee threw himself headlong into a project that inhabits him. Create a board game on the prison environment. Its objective is clear: "Make the prison known to prevent kids from falling into it." "

“In isolation, some people freak out. It calmed me down ”

The idea of ​​creating his game entitled "RPS" for "Additional sentence reduction" germinated when Arbi was placed in solitary confinement for almost a year. Deprived of going out and having no contact, the boy managed to obtain a cardboard calendar that the prison doctor had left him, in addition to a four-color pen. Each day, Arbi scribbled a few words on his calendar, describing his daily life in prison. The idea then occurred to him to make a board game to publicize the prison environment. “In isolation, some people freak out. It calmed me down. It got my ideas back in place. In my game, I don't invent anything, these are just things that I have experienced. I explain what a visiting room is, a remission of sentence, a crime. No matter how bad you are in prison, you take a blow on the head. We no longer have much control ”.

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His project quickly convinced those around him. “I met him when he was in Vezin a year ago. He was inhabited by his project, ”explains Rachel Cardiz. She who works for the Face reinsertion association is used to meeting young prisoners. This game, she believes hard as iron. "I played with it. It is successful, it shows what we risk. The prison is not Club Med and the best placed to talk about it is someone who has been there ”. If he wants to see his game published so much, it's because Arbi believes he can avoid kids taking the same path as him. “I want to go to colleges, high schools, youth centers to talk about it. Reintegration in prison does not work. The advisers have 80 or 90 files to manage. They cannot afford it. Prevention must be done before ”.

"Today, it's all over"

As a young adult, he probably would have needed help to avoid twisting and falling into traffic. “I arrived in France at the age of 16 to flee Albania. I was amazed by France but I did not speak a word of French. The only thing I thought about was playing soccer. ”

The teenager he was even wore the colors of Stade Rennais. Center-forward in Team 3, he regularly spotted Shabani Nonda, Paul Le Guen and even Zinedine Zidane when he came to play the Intertoto Cup with Juve. A few injuries and bad encounters later, the footballer put away his ball to fall into drug trafficking. "Today, it's all over. My family struggled for seven years to come and see me in the visiting room. I don't want to do this to them anymore. I have finished my "career". Now I'm riding at the right speed, I'm holding myself up well, ”he says. If he finds the funding, Arbi would like to see his game released this summer.

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