The government is set to make a major pitch to companies to recruit former prisoners with employment forming a major part of its plan to reform prisons.
James Timpson, the new prisons minister, is seeking to boost the number of companies that actively recruit from behind bars. Timpson himself has employed thousands of ex-offenders at his eponymous key-cutting and shoe repair company.
Sourcing employment opportunities is seen by many working for reform of the justice system as a key tool to reduce reoffending. More than a quarter of all prisoners go on to reoffend in the UK, a far higher figure than for many comparable countries in western Europe. Tackling reoffending is viewed as crucial for cutting the number of people in prison, while reoffending is estimated to cost the economy £18bn a year.
Employing ex-offenders
Hiring ex-offenders can boost results and reputation
Research carried out by the Ministry of Justice has found that ex-prisoners who have a job on their release from jail are significantly less likely to reoffend.
The department also found that a large majority of employers who recruited ex-prisoners found them to be reliable, motivated and trustworthy staff. However, only one in six prisoners is in employment six weeks after release and less than a quarter are in work after six months.
Timpson and Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, are thought to be planning to significantly expand employment advisory boards in jails. These act as a link between prisons and employers, to ensure offenders use their time in prison to gain the skills and links to job opportunities that could get them a job on release.
Currently, a number of well-known firms such as Lotus Cars, Sodexo, Greggs and Timpson are represented on the advisory boards but Labour wants to grow the number of employers who actively recruit from prisons. In May, KPMG joined those encouraging firms to recruit former prisoners.
Improving opportunities for “purposeful activity” while behind bars, such as learning and training, and ensuring each prisoner has a plan for when they leave custody will be among the aims of the policy.
Prime minister Keir Starmer told reporters during his trip to the Nato conference in Washington on Wednesday that the state of prisons was “worse than I thought it was”. He said: “I’m pretty shocked that it’s been allowed to get into that situation. It’s reckless to allow them to get into that place. We’ll be saying more about that in short order.”
There are currently fewer than 700 spaces left in men’s jails in England and Wales.
Mahmood is expected to announce in the coming days a reduction in the automatic release point for criminals that will allow prisoners serving sentences of under four years to be automatically released less than halfway through their sentence for the first time. The measure will not apply to those convicted of violent, sexual or terror-related offences.
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Former, Conservative, justice secretary Alex Chalk, said that he supported Mahmood’s plans to lower the automatic early release point to 40% but added that more radical and far-reaching reforms were needed.
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