News & Views

On 18th May we will be hosting the next event in our Justice for All Series at The Old Bailey, Justice for Prison Leavers. The event, sponsored by Sodexo, will be focused on the rehabilitation and reintegration of individuals leaving prison, examining education, employment, and housing initiatives aimed at reducing reoffending and promoting public safety.

On 18th May we will be hosting the next event in our Justice for All Series at The Old Bailey, Justice for Prison Leavers. The event, sponsored by Sodexo, will be focused on the rehabilitation and reintegration of individuals leaving prison, examining education, employment, and housing initiatives aimed at reducing reoffending and promoting public safety.

As with all the events in the series, I am eager to highlight that not only is there a moral imperative to understanding these challenges better, and finding ways to address them, but it's ultimately to the benefit of us all. Justice for all makes both social and economic sense, and how we finance justice going forward is something the City can play a proactive role in.

Inspiring contributors to the Justice for Prison Leavers event

This event will see us joined by people with lived experience of leaving prison and trying to make their way in the world, as well as those who have dedicated their lives and careers to supporting them.

Amongst them are, Lord Timpson - Minister of State for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending; Martin Jones, HM Inspector for Probation, and Penny Parker, Founder and CEO of StandOut - an award-winning charity that empowers people to rebuild their lives after prison. XO Bikes founder, Stef Jones, who decided to create a business to employ prison leavers after volunteering at HMP Brixton and Lady Russell, Chair of Trustees for The Sheriffs' & Recorder's Fund will also be attending.

Dr. Gwen Adshead, a leading forensic psychiatrist, former BBC Reith lecturer, and psychotherapist working with violent offenders will in conversation with Steve Gallant, who spent time in HMP Frankland for a murder conviction, found the road to redemption, and then confronted and fought armed-terrorist Usman Khan at the London Bridge attacks, restraining him until police arrived. The incident, and his commitment to a non-violent life, led to him being rewarded with a Royal pardon in 2021.

My friend Egerton is attending. Now an executive at a leading financial institution, he served a five-year prison sentence from the age of 17, using that time to turn his life and his mindset around. Finally, the wonderful Rev. Paul Cowley MBE — an ex-offender, former soldier, and priest — who continues to dedicate his work to helping others rebuild their lives through employment through the newly created charity, Second Chance Partnership, of which he is the Founder and now Managing Director.

Paul was the person I first visited prisons with many years ago, and since then he has become not only a source of inspiration, but a good friend. Much of the Justice for All work we are doing today has come to fruition thanks to his influence and support.

Understanding the context

Around a decade ago the Ban the Box campaign came about, aiming to increase opportunities for people with convictions to compete for jobs by encouraging companies to remove the tick-box from application forms regarding convictions. The purpose was not to remove transparency, but enable context.

When we think of criminal convictions our minds often jump to extreme violence, but when I spoke to Kate at the Fair Chance Business Alliance last year, I was struck by some of the statistics. For example:

• One in four working age adults has a criminal record in the UK. The vast majority of those have not been to prison, but that means that a quarter of adults are in a position where a DBS check might exclude them from getting a job or promotion.
• 90% of people with a criminal record haven't been to prison. Therefore, the vast majority of people who are struggling to find work because of a criminal record most likely do not fit a dangerous stereotype.
• Only a third of people serving a custodial sentence have been convicted of a violent offence.
• 61% of criminal records are for motoring offences, which doesn't make them irrelevant to an employer, but doesn't necessarily mean that they will present a risk in every workplace.
• A third of women with a criminal record have it for non-payment of their TV licence.
• 79% of convictions handed down are fines.

From that alone it becomes clear that what a DBS check (and a tick box) doesn't show, is anything that would help an employer to make an informed decision about whether or not recruiting someone with a criminal record poses a risk within their organisation.

To the best of my knowledge, to date only around 60 companies nationwide and six or seven in the City of London have signed up to Ban the Box - in a district hosting over 22,000 businesses and c.675,000 workers it seems we can do better. People often get dazzled by the idea that the City is all about big salaries and high responsibility jobs, but there's a wide variety of roles available that would be good starting points for people leaving prison, in an environment designed to reward the willing.

Collectively we have spent much of the last decade trying to make sure the doors to the City are wide open under the umbrella of diversity and inclusion, but the final frontier seems to be supporting people with a criminal record who are looking to rebuild their lives.

I reiterate that in the Justice for All series, we keep a focus on why justice makes economic sense as well as social sense. With that in mind, I think it's important we ask ourselves - at the margin, isn’t it better to give those who have served time and seek to be gainfully employed an opportunity to be useful rather than getting involved in the underworld again where they’re a net cost?

Preparing people for life after prison

The reality is that people leaving prison after a sentence of any length need tailored support. In London one of the organisations offering that support is StandOut, who work in the three largest of our Victorian prisons, delivering a unique programme that inspires people, helps them develop positive mindsets and develop some of the life skills they will need to build a life outside of prison.

The charity introduces the idea of employment - for some people it might be the first time they have thought about the world of legitimate work. Crucially, their support continues after release, building on the relationship and trust nurtured in prison and is individually tailored. They offer immediate practical support, often stepping in to help people to avoid homelessness, advocating to secure benefits so people can build stability, and running one-to-one coaching that keeps people motivated about their long-term goals for training or employment.

Penny Parker, StandOut's Founder and CEO, says: "This support, that bridges prison to the community, is vital. Working with StandOut, people build confidence and self esteem and, crucially, an ingredient often lacking in prisons - hope - as well as practical skills and the resilient mindset they will need to face the challenges of resettling in the community after prison."

Employing prison leavers

Unsurprisingly, Paul Cowley is also a font of knowledge in this area. Paul has been working in this space for nearly 30 years. Nearly four years ago he joined forces with the founders of Iceland Foods, when they asked him to create a programme within their business for employing prison leavers. Giving him free rein to design the approach in a way that was totally different to anyone else, it has been a great success, having employed more than 500 former prisoners since it launched in 2022 and making them the biggest employer of ex-offenders in the country.

Having insisted that they begin the recruitment process when men and women are still in prison, so they have the security of a job offer before they leave, Paul’s three key requirements for what became the Second Chance scheme were:

• His team would interview candidates while they were still in prison, and if they met a set minimum criteria they would get a letter saying they had a job. No one else is doing that to this day.
• The company guarantees that job. If the recruit wants to go to live and work in Brixton because that's where their family is (and it's important to have support), and there are no vacancies at the Iceland store there, the business sponsors the role for 12 to 15 weeks, even if there are no vacancies. The business takes the shortfall.
• They offer a real job of a minimum of 16 hours a week and maximum of a full time role.

The Second Chance Partnership

Given the success of the approach, Paul's boss suggested that they should start helping other businesses to follow suit. Paul met with several of the biggest retailers, but largely came up against resistance, typically because the people at the top weren't convinced. Undefeated, they set about creating the Second Chance Partnership - a charity, which is, in effect, a consultancy offering the same process that Iceland has implemented internally for their own recruitment. Now with a team of four, they are making great inroads in the business sector, with leaders in logistics, retail, farming, hospitality, and food production working with them.

Paul says: "It's got the potential to be one of the biggest ex-offender employment agencies around. There's such a need for it because employers need reliable people and most businesses are currently understaffed, but there are thousands of capable prison leavers. The process needs to be handled professionally with all the relevant safeguarding in place, but there’s lots of talent - not everyone is a clear and present danger. UK employers continue to face labour shortages and have a high staff turnover, so there’s a constant need for men and women to get into work. It’s also a cost-efficient way to recruit.

On the other side of the coin, the social value expectations are much better if we get people into jobs when they leave prison. It helps to reduce reoffending costs as people are less likely to reoffend if they have a job when they leave prison. At the moment reoffending costs the UK economy around £18 billion per year.”

Investing in redemption

Paul likens the current system around prison leavers to a dangerous clifftop where people keep falling off, saying you have to mend the fence at the top not place more ambulances at the bottom.

He sees the private sector as being instrumental in leading the charge and creating impetus for improvement. Looking at the bigger picture, he echoes my own belief in the merits of an approach that focuses on rehabilitation and redemption - something that not only serves the individual better, but society as well.

It’s an approach that’s had proven results in Scandinavian countries, where they spend a lot more upfront on rehabilitation-focused prison systems, but re-conviction rates are as low as 20% in some areas. For example, in Norway, policy changes dropped the reoffending to its current level of 20%, and the Netherlands was able to shrink its prison population by 40% between 2005 and 2022.

Paul says: “You're meant to come out of prison better than you went in, but at the moment in the UK we're punitive and not redemptive whereas places like the Scandinavian countries are more focused on rehabilitation and they have some of the lowest reoffending rates. They train their officers differently, prisons are smaller, they're living communities, and when people come out they don't reoffend. In the short-term it’s expensive, but in the long-term it's much more cost-effective.”

He continues: “The Second Chance Partnership is a small model to help try to create change in a structured, supported, and employer-led way. There are clear processes, a clear sense of ownership, and clear outcomes. I do all the hard work on behalf of the employer - all they have to do is employ someone and give them a chance. It's not a miracle worker - a lot of the people we’re talking about lack education, many had difficult upbringings, some have struggled with addiction, and that led to an involvement in crime. However, the problems we face as a country because of a lack of support for prison leavers aren’t going away. The private sector is in a unique position to do something about it.”

Paul is careful to point out that he and his team do put important safeguarding in place. They don’t take anyone who’s on the Sex Offenders register, who’s been involved with terrorosm, who's committed premeditated murder, or who is without any fixed accommodation when they leave prison. The types of job they recruit for are varied, but are often at the lower-skilled end of the market, from manual labour to warehousing work.

He says: “When I send you someone, you can be confident that they meet the criteria we’ve set out - we understand that you have to trust the person who's supplying your recruit, and our success rate comes out of the Iceland model. Most businesses are nervous, but together we can have a massive impact. For some context, there are around 250,000 job vacancies within the companies we are speaking to at the moment alone, but there’s around 87,000 people in prison in England and Wales. Of those, only around 40,000 will be ready for work. So, we really shouldn’t have a problem finding jobs for these people.

Of course, there's a process of earning trust and some people will leave their jobs or be dismissed, but in the three and a half years I’ve been doing this there are people I interviewed on my first day who are still at Iceland - some are supervisors, one is now interviewing for a manager role, and when it’s successful, the feedback is wonderful. One of our home delivery drivers wrote to me recently, saying: ‘For the first time in years I feel trusted. This job gave me purpose, stability, and the chance to be the person I've always wanted to be for my family.’

I’ve had stories from people who tell me they’ve been able to get their kids out of care, they’ve bought a bike for their son for the first time, or they got their first payslip. This isn’t just about a job - it delivers generational change.”

I don’t think I could put it better myself. If you would like to come to the event on 18th May please register your interest and book tickets below. We would be delighted for you to join the conversation.

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