Businesses urged to give ex-offenders a ‘leg up’ by employing them.
Businesses are to be offered financial incentives if they employ ex-offenders under ambitious new plans being unveiled by the justice secretary.
According to a report from Sky News, the inmate education and employment strategy will give individual prison governors full autonomy to tailor their programmes to meet the needs of employers in their local area.
Prison officers have voiced concerns that recent staffing cuts will make it extremely difficult to supervise the programme in some jails.
At the Standford Hill prison in Kent, the prison governor James Padley has determined that construction work is one of the main areas crying out for new recruits.
The inmates at Standford Hill are put through an intensive course, giving them certified qualifications to enter that work sector.
“If you give a man employment, you give him the ability to support himself, to clean himself, to look after his family,” adley says. “But you also give him self-esteem and you make him part of the society that he’s been away from.”
You can read the full report here.
