Tag: Release from prison -

Officer G – a prison officer in a million

prison-officer I’ve been watching the news over the past couple of weeks which have shown some disturbing images of prison riots.

Prison officers being interviewed in the press say that cuts in staffing mean they don’t have time to deal with individual prisoners’ requests and issues. They’re spending less time interacting with prisoners which means that they miss out on changes in prisoner’s behaviour.

It’s been reported that prison management isn’t bothered about frontline staff as long as they complete the necessary paperwork. Management don’t see the importance of engaging with officers or prisoners on a daily, face-to-face basis. The end result is totally demotivated officers.

Therein, I believe lies the problem. For anybody that’s been in prison, it’s fair to say that a good officer can make all the difference and the impact they can have on an individual can go on long after the individual leaves prison.

I arrived in prison having just received a 4 year sentence. Not having any control over my situation or environment was a huge culture shock and it became obvious that prisons are generally under-funded places, having to deal with a variety of people, some of whom can be really difficult to manage. It was also clear that when asking a question some prison officers knew nothing and didn’t want to know anything, whilst others knew loads and were keen to impart their knowledge to others. Officer G was one such woman.

The things she did may sound simple but they were different to the way a lot of the other officers acted.

She was a role model for socially acceptable behaviour. For example, she always referred to us as ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs’, she was always really polite and never used bad language.
For anybody that was willing to make changes to their lives she was happy to reward their positive behaviour. This was simple stuff like arranging a bingo afternoon or a film show on a Sunday afternoon.
She was always keen to encourage us to seek guidance, information and advice from a wide range of different organisations and she would often get the more capable prisoners to help those who were less able.

Officer G didn’t think that prison should stop us being individuals and more importantly, women. After we complained that the make-up we could purchase through the prison shop was useless and really expensive, Officer G contacted a well-known make up supplier and became the wing’s ‘Avon lady’. She used a team of girls to help her package it up and distribute it which reflected the trust she put in us.

Everybody in prison will have worries or concerns of some kind and mine was what I was going to do for work when I left prison. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to go back into my previous line of work but I didn’t know anything else. I spoke to Officer G about this who explained that I’d soon be eligible to move to an open prison where I’d be able to do some voluntary work before being able to apply for paid work. She told me that I should think carefully about where I did my voluntary work as it could potentially lead straight into a paid job which I may be able to continue upon my release. She suggested that I consider work in the retail or leisure industry as career progression can be quite quick.

The next day when I saw Officer G she gave me a list of hotels which were local to the open prison that I’d be moving to. She told me that she thought I had some good people skills and she could see me working in a hotel. I set about updating my CV and sent it out along with a covering letter explaining my conviction and current circumstances to all the hotels on the list, asking whether they had any opportunities for either voluntary or paid work. By the time I’d moved to the open prison a month later, I’d already lined up a couple of interviews.

To cut a long story short, I was offered a work experience role with a large hotel chain. These roles are generally geared at school leavers looking to get a taste of what working in a hotel can offer. However, the company is large enough to tailor these programmes to an individual’s needs and this enabled me to work with them on a voluntary basis for a couple of months. As soon as I was eligible to, I applied for a team members job which involved working on the reception desk and also in the hotel restaurant when required.

I’ve now left prison but have continued working at the hotel. I was promoted pretty quickly to team leader and I’m now working towards a job as an Operations Manager. I’m very self-motivated and I’ve worked hard to get where I am. However, without the guidance and the push from Officer G I’m not sure that I would be where I am today. So thanks Officer G, you’re one in a million.

By Daisy (name changed to protect identity)

Useful links

Comment – Let us know your thoughts on this post by commenting below
Information – We have practical self-help information on looking for (and keeping) employment, disclosing to employers and leaving prison
Discuss this issue – There are some interesting discussions related to job centre agreements and sanctions on our online forum.

I am not my conviction – I am a good man

Over the last 15 months I have faced up to some harsh realities. Through my crimes I failed as a father, husband, son, brother and friend. I hurt the one’s I love and I will have to live with that forever. I have been honest with myself, admitting what I did was wrong and with help, I am understanding why I went wrong. But everything that has happened to me, is my fault.

Mid last year, I was released from prison, and that was the first new day of my new life.

I will not forget what I did and the hurt I caused to the people I love. With the support I have and my faith I am looking forward to rebuild my life, I know it will be a path with obstacles in the way, but forward I will go, never to offend again. I have a second chance and I will not falter.

However, I owe society nothing. For 23 years of my working life I helped to protect the people of my county. What I did was wrong, but when I was not committing my crimes, I was a good man. I like many other in life made a big mistake, but how long does society punish us for it?

Why when my crime did not involve driving, does my car insurance go up from £200 – £600 pounds a year. Insurance companies may say, what I did shows a lack of judgement and error, which could come out in bad driving. Rubbish, for the 3 years I was committing my crimes, I did not have one accident. It did not effect my driving. Insurance companies discriminate against people with convictions. What they are saying is, “all people with convictions that are not spent are bad drivers, therefore have to pay more”. That is ridiculous and discriminatory.

I was guilty of my crimes, I admitted that guilt at court and was sentenced to prison as punishment for that crime. I have now paid my dues to society, now it has to let me get on.

Now you should say why should society let me get on?

Because society thinks it is forgiving and will give second chances. I am sure most of society if they make a mistake, hope they are judged on their life as a whole, not the small period they offended. Therefore Society has to practise what it preaches.

Therefore employers should not refuse you a job just because you have a conviction. As Unlock say, there is a vast pool of experience out there, that is disregarded, because people see a conviction and not the person.

I am not my conviction, I am a good man.

Also the only difference between me and other men is I made a mistake. One day it could be them making the mistake and asking for a second chance. Best society is made aware now that the majority of society is unforgiving and there are no second chances. Perhaps that would help to reduce crime if Society knew the truth.

That’s why in my new life I will assist and help charities like Unlock and other organisations to spread the word. That a convicted person is not a bad person, they are someone who made a mistake. Tomorrow a friend or family member or you could make a mistake. How would you feel if you were judged on you conviction, and not as the person you are?

Let them who have not sinned, throw the first stone. If you pick that stone up and throw it. Remember, it could come back to you!

By Brian (name changed to protect identity)

Developing success from failure

My world came crashing down in November 2010 when I was given a 33 month prison sentence. I had never been in trouble before and the reality that I would be spending time at Her Majesty’s pleasure started to dawn on me. The first few weeks in were naturally hard, I missed both family and friends along with my freedom. I had decided from the outset that this would be my one and only time behind bars.

I’d be the first to admit I was never academically gifted, so decided to use my time in gaining some qualifications and certificates. I tried my hand at bricklaying, a bit of plastering here and there and plumbing. This wasn’t for me though, so I decided to speak to the prison education department. I then discovered the Open University, a way of me gaining a degree without the need to attend university full time. I successfully applied to the Prisoners Education Trust for a grant to cover the course fees and enrolled onto a business course.

It was now March 2012, time to be released and I was nervous to say the least. My accommodation had fallen through 3 weeks earlier due to outside interference. Fortunately I had been communicating with my probation officer in the weeks leading up to my release and alternative accommodation had been sourced. I found myself in a hostel, not a million miles away from home but in a town I knew nobody.

I had worked all of my adult life and long-term unemployment was not on the agenda. I knew my conviction would go against me, but determined as ever I secured interviews for a wide range of jobs. I eventually signed with an agency in May 2012 and left the hostel for rented accommodation. The next 18 months saw me work tirelessly to make ends meet. Throughout this period I continued to apply for permanent positions without success, all but one stating my criminal conviction made me a ‘risk’ to employ.

It was now September 2013; I was off licence and was enjoying more freedom. I had applied for and was successful in my application to a family manufacturing company. At last I had that security of a permanent job behind me. The HR Manager said to me after I disclosed my criminal conviction, “As a business we have an obligation to employ a range of people who make up the local community, and those with criminal convictions, whether spent or unspent, fall within this category”.

I married my long-term girlfriend in June 2014 and we are now planning for the future. I am now halfway to completing a degree in Business and Environmental Management. To cap it all off, I have an interview next week for a management position at the family manufacturing company.

Dale Carnegie once quoted “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”

By Paul*

Problems with employment for serving inmates

I am an inmate at an open prison. I have been at the establishment for around 6 months now, already having served a sizable amount of time, and I am in the process of rebuilding my life. I am fortunate enough to have good family support and a stable background with which to go back to upon my eventual release – a lot of my peers are not so fortunate. I am already going home to visit my family at weekends, and I also have a very worthwhile voluntary part time job. In the very near future I will be able to go home for ‘overnight resettlement leaves’.

And that leaves me only one final hurdle; finding paid employment whilst still serving my sentence…

Part of the work I do within the jail (when I’m not out) is helping my peers to find paid employment themselves; I work as a mentor. We have various means by which potential opportunities can be generated, indeed many inmates source their own leads for work, or at least they try. I am lucky enough to work with some very professional people from outside organisations. Serco, SOVA, the National Careers Service, and the staff within the jail. A large percentage of the inmates in the jail are long term or ‘life’ (indeterminate) sentence prisoners, with some very serious offences and – in some cases – criminal histories. There has been a lot of focus from both media and government recently on the open jail estate following several high profile absconds and incidents.

But the problems we are experiencing are not necessarily what you would expect (i.e issues to do with disclosure, criminal record checks, unspent convictions). Neither are the problems often other obvious issues such as an inmate’s poor work history, and/or lack of qualifications and references.

On the contrary, we have several local companies extremely keen to take inmates on. After all, they would be getting (in theory at least) staff who are keen to get on with lives in the real world, desperate not to screw anything up, physically fit, willing and able. Grateful for what they can get, probably more reliable than the average applicant for a similar job, due to the potentially disastrous consequences of being anything other than a reliable and trustworthy worker. People who have been through a lot to get to where they now are. People who may have had extremely recently all relevant training taken care of as part of their sentence plan. People who will often be employable at minimum wage for starters, who won’t have demands for annual leave. In many ways, inmates can be highly employable people.

Getting interviews and job offers has not been the problem. The stumbling blocks we are increasingly encountering are with company insurance, and problems getting clearance from the Police Liaison Officer (P.L.O).

On the subject of insurance, I have very little knowledge aside from observations made: Insurers are wanting more and more disclosure information, and subsequent big delays are sometimes scaring employers off.

But the biggest problems are coming more and more often from the Police Liaison Officer. The P.L.O’s job is to clear any prospective companies as suitable and safe for a serving inmate to work for, although it should be pointed out that the Prison Governor has the final say and can in theory overturn a negative decision made by the P.L.O. A Governor will rarely overturn a P.L.O decision, which is understandable given that if something went wrong it would be down to one person making a decision against other ‘intelligence’, and therefore becoming a focal point for any blame.

Recently we have had several opportunities for voluntary work, paid work, and training placements turned down by the P.L.O. It seems to me that there have been more rejections than we previously had, and it does make you wonder if some sort of ‘shift in climate’ or pressure from above, such as at government level, have been the motivating factor. Within the last few weeks we have had a handful of P.L.O refusals on the grounds that the prospective companies had not been trading for long enough… upon closer inspection, one of these companies had been trading for over 4 years, plenty of time you would think – especially given how many businesses and companies have gone to the wall during the last 6-7 years. Subsequently you will obviously have many new start-up businesses. Not that 4 years is even within this remit; it’s clearly an established entity already.

If there have indeed been any unknown changes as a result of new government directives or criteria’s, one thing that you can be certain of is that the shift – if there has been one – will have been implemented extremely poorly. Half-baked directives given with no clear statement of intention, no back up training or clear instruction, no structure in place. Every single recent change to regime in open estate jails – and there have been several, I can assure you – have been exactly that.

A colleague of mine who suffered an inexplicable refusal by the P.L.O (and saw all his hard work and diligence come to nothing on little more than a whim) requested an appointment with the P.L.O, which, surprisingly he got.

The outcome of that meeting is almost too embarrassing to write about. The officer gave completely irrelevant comment about individual cases he had dealt with where an offender had been caught in unlawful circumstances, and even started talking about individual inmates still within our jail that he had dealt with – by name! He regaled an instance where he had reconsidered a decision, given the green light, and there had subsequently been a ‘mishap’. As a result he would “never change his mind again”. All this falls under ‘blanket punishment’ – one person’s misdemeanour being used against everyone else. The government have clear directives about such treatment not taking place. Talking about individual cases by name is downright incompetent, reckless and irresponsible, and the man had clearly no real guidelines or notion of what he was doing, let alone any concern about even taking it seriously.

Even when the clearance is eventually given, the fact remains that companies tend to advertise for jobs when they need staff. They cannot afford to wait for 2 months with no idea as to whether or not they will even ever get to employ someone they have offered a job. Why would they have advertised in the first place?

The current government have the party line that they are very pro offender resettlement. They have over the last 12 months nominated several closed conditions jails as becoming resettlement focused establishments. But it’s only a throwaway comment.

Many long term or ‘lifer’ inmates have virtual certainty that they will not gain parole without having found paid work. They will remain in open conditions costing the tax payer around £45k a year, clogging up a system already on its knees with population rise, and we are supposed to find paid work in this climate of seemingly increasing limitation.

And then they wonder why so many lifers are suddenly running away when they are out on temporary release…

I think there could be a link.

by Anonymous

The prizes in life we fail to win, is because we doubt the strength within

As my Mum always told me throughout my sentence, I urge you to listen, “The prizes in life we fail to win, is because we doubt the strength within”.

In the May of 1999 my life fell apart! I was convicted of the importation of a class A drug and sentenced to four years in prison. I was 19.

I made the most of my time inside, determined that if I would be granted my parole and I kept my head down I would make my time away as productive as possible. So therefore, I worked long hours in the prison kitchen, attended computer courses and I even got addicted to cross stitch! I did anything that would make the time away from my Mum, my Nan and friends more bearable. My hard work paid off and I was granted parole. I then, thankfully, left HMP after serving only two years of a four year sentence.

Life outside was strange. Going out in the dark and even everything generally taken for granted like the feel of a carpet between my toes.

On release the whispers start. ‘ She has been released’…..’ Bet she won’t go anywhere in life’…. Really?!!

I had my first interview two weeks later. The first thing I told my potential employers was that I was released from prison two weeks ago. I had to disclose my conviction as it was not spent and at the time would never become spent. That evening I got the call ….. The job was mine. I was 21.

I am now nearly 35 and for the past 13 years I have worked nonstop. I have never been out of work and now run the UK division for a global company. I go on fantastic holidays. Drive a wonderful car. Eat in lovely places and……………… fill in the gaps! Am I boasting?? Yes maybe I am because people love to see other people fail. Even more so when you have ex-offender printed on your forehead.

So it goes to show that by working hard, having focus, vision and sheer determination then your dreams really can come true.

For me now the old book is well and truly closed because of the information I have learnt from the Unlock website. The new legislation that came into effect in March 2014 means my conviction has now become spent, which I am so thankful for. I know now that I am a different person to the one I was from when I was 19. I have worked hard to make something of my life and no longer have the stigma of an ex-offender on me.

So as I said at the start: ‘My Mum always told me throughout my sentence and I urge you to listen: “The prizes in life we fail to win, Is because we doubt the strength within”’