Newspaper Articles
Mail on Sunday – 25 July 2010 – Prisons and Mental Illness
Evening Standard – 22 July 2010 – Conrad Black’s Release
The Times - 1 July 2010 - Prison and Prison Reform
The Mail on Sunday – 30 May 2010 – Resignation of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Sunday Times – March 7, 2010 : Kazakhstan jails
The Guardian – 30 January 2010 : The Chilcot Enquiry
The Daily Mail – 24 December 2009 – Growth of Spirituality in British Churches at Christmas
The Guardian, 3rd June 2009: Rehabilitation of Offenders Act
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:50 am
Just read your recent Times and Engage Articles, and how right I believe you are.Oh but will they listen? I retired as a Police Sergeant in October 2008 after committing my last 5 years of service in a multi agency Prolific Offender Unit in Nottinghamshire consisting of Police, Probation and NHS drugs workers. Although I saw some success in terms of lives being turned around, that work was in fact mostly done by the police officers acting as mentors as the poor Probation staff drowned in bureaucracy and reports. It was so sad to see, as the Probation staff I worked with were so dedicated.
I saw the drive of the unit weakened as the agencies became more and more performance driven and new managers who had not birthed the project or had any real passion or vision for the work diluted its impact as the Police were instructed to target rather than support recently released offenders.
The good news on the other hand is that I have been involved in a church based project in North Notts for 10 years that helps the men and women on release find love acceptance support and mentoring and through signposting and working with some amazing Christian resources such as Teen Challenge, Victory Outreach Uk. Betel, Save the Family have seen far more lives impacted and turned around than I ever did in the so-called professional field. Why? Faith being one very good reason but probably not one that would go down well in the secular world and that’s why those services fail to attract any form of government funding. Another very good reason is that they are more driven by care and passion than performance and are the true investors in people.
I have recently joined Kainos charity as a mentor on the out for those men who have graduated and been released after completing their Challenge to change programme that is operated in 3 prisons nationally. When you look at their results compared with the national rate for reoffending over the past 10 years of operating, it is truly staggering. Their web site is well worth a check. If Mr Kenneth Clarke is serious about reducing the prison population, then he must look at this and similar work.
Please let me encourage to keep banging the drum until it is heard.
Regards
Lawson Main
July 23rd, 2010 at 7:36 pm
One impartial speech on Fox news within the Television show. This individual carries a seriously tough immigration policy. The master graduated around the Harvard Higher education. Right now he features the one Radio Show. He could not just like the actual Us leader.