Wreakes is describing the problem faced by newly released prisoners – without a decent roof over their heads and employment and social support, ex-offenders find it hard to settle back into society.
Such support is vital to reducing re-offending rates – last year, re-offenders were responsible for 18% of UK crime, costing the taxpayer £10.8bn and the Home Office estimates that employment can reduce re-offending rates by between a third and a half. But inmates tend not to walk out of prison and straight into a good job. According to government estimates, half have problems with drugs and a quarter have alcohol-related problems.
The government's From Dependency to Work fund is investing £25m up to 2004 to help addicted ex-offenders to find jobs, and crime reduction charity NACRO houses 1400 ex-offenders in flats and hostels, helping them with budgeting and numeracy skills. But these projects are a drop in the ocean.
More often than not, councils are forced into short-term solutions such as shoddy bedsits because not enough effort is made to prepare prisoners for life on the outside.
This is what prompted Wreakes and his colleagues Julie Jones and Kevin Lindley of Premier Prisons, which owns HMP Doncaster, to launch the Bridge Project last May. It unites the prison, council, local landlords and employers in a partnership that allows housing, benefits, education and employment to be handled for each inmate in a systematic way. It works. By the end of December, the team had already placed 210 ex-offenders into employment, training or education, from a target of 245 by the end of March this year.
The team's first step is to ensure inmates have adequate housing after their sentence is served. As Wreakes says: "Ex-offenders can't take a proper job or get education or training without a roof over their head. Even registering at a GP is difficult without a fixed address."
Every month, the team interview 20 prisoners who declare themselves "no fixed abode" to assess their benefit status. "If a person gets, say, a six-month sentence and they've been in council or private landlord accommodation, we make sure they still get housing benefits," says Jones. "Otherwise they stop signing on, the employment service or benefit agency instructs the landlord and they accrue arrears."
The key role of councils
The way to stop prisoners running up debt and reducing their chance of getting proper housing on release is to involve the local authority. Although Doncaster is a private prison, and the Bridge Project's £20,000 running costs are funded by Premier Prisons, there are strong links with Doncaster council's homeless people's unit. Every Monday, council homelessness advice officer Maria Martin spends half an hour with each inmate, running them through benefit forms and ensuring they are placed on the housing register for the town they wish to move to.
Jones is convinced these apparently simple instructions make a difference. "The prisoners here may be hardened criminals, but they're very frightened of people in authority, or protocol," she says. "A housing benefit form with five different sections is a real struggle, because they're used to bypassing things to get what they want."
If you’re sitting in here and you want to turn your life around, the means are there
Les Hughes, Prisoner, Doncaster Remand Prison
Graham (not his real name) is 21, but has been in care since the age of two, and has been in and out of four different prisons. In Doncaster, however, the Bridge Project helped him realise that he was entitled to raise his priority status on Barnsley's housing register. "He attended all our classes on job skills, got a CV and learned how to present himself at interview," says Wreakes. "He's moved into a one-bedroom flat in Barnsley, and we helped him get a grant to renovate it."
Council and prison staff also liaise to help ex-offenders pay up-front deposits on private rented housing. Private landlords in Doncaster will typically charge £100 a week rent, but the real problem is the month's rent in advance and the £300 to £500 deposit to safeguard the property against damage. Many ex-offenders cannot afford this, so the council has built up links with a local employment agency, Reed in Partnership, which pays the deposit in return for inmates coming to work for them after their release.
Employment is the next component in the Bridge Project's work. A 1997 NACRO survey found 60% of ex-offenders had been refused employment on the basis of their criminal record. The situation will get worse. The government last year set up the Criminal Records Bureau, a new executive agency of the Home Office. Under its "basic disclosure" scheme, employers are entitled to access the criminal records of prospective staff. It's fine for rooting out unsuitable teachers, nurses and carers but can be a problem for ex-offenders trying to find work in roles to which their convictions have less relevance.
Work with employers
To counter this, the Bridge Project has built up contacts with employers. Multimedia company Summit Media, based near Hull, provides training in website and search engine design, and marketing. The team seeks out IT-minded inmates and recommends them to Summit for training. Summit gives each candidate a test, then the candidate gives a 10 minute presentation to their two senior managers.
Reed in Partnership comes in on Thursday afternoons and helps inmates learn job interview techniques and compile CVs. The Bridge Project team has built up wider contacts. The directors of Tesco, BMW, and the NHS chief executive have visited to see the employment potential of the inmates.
The final step is to keep in touch with the ex-offenders. Because Doncaster is a remand prison, inmates with longer sentences often get transferred to other prisons. The Bridge Project team keeps a record of where each one goes and what their housing benefit status is. Although inmates get most of their help from homelessness teams in their home towns, the Bridge Project is committed to keeping in touch with their charges to stop them slipping off the housing ladder.
Les Hughes is serving a seven-year stretch for manslaughter. An ex-solicitor, he is a member of the project team even though he's a prisoner, helping with homelessness applications and benefit queries. He acts as a "buddy" – a recent initiative whereby selected inmates help their peers with any practical or personal problems.
Hughes says of the team: "They're obviously not always able to help people. Some inmates have got drug and alcohol issues, or don't want to know. But if you're sitting in here and you say to yourself, 'I'm going to turn it round', then the means are there for you to help yourself."
Source
Housing Today
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