Report urges to boost efforts to get prison leavers into work

A new report has urged to increase efforts to get 50,000 prison leavers into work to plug the current labour shortage, a statement said.

The report by thinktank, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), in collaboration with Leicestershire-based Randal Charitable Foundation, stated that if the idea is implemented the country would save billions of pounds and plug many of its more than one million job vacancies.

Nearly 50,000 people leave prisons in the UK each year but only three in ten have a job six months later.

According to the statement, those who are unemployed are at serious risk of re-offending, which badly affects many families and communities.

“If enacted, it will go further and faster towards addressing the staggering £18 billion annual cost of re-offending, as research shows that being in employment is proven to help break the cycle of crime. Plugging labour shortages will also provide enormous benefits to the economy, as the chancellor labelled employee shortages as a major threat to economic growth in his most recent budget," said Dr (Prof) Nik Kotecha OBE DL, founder of the Randal Charitable Foundation.

“But it’s more than that besides – it can help shape steps to support a long-neglected community - for meaningful remediation in an area of very real need in our society. We can and we should tackle this - as businesses, as communities and as policy shapers - together.”

The report also called for better education in the UK's prison system, more digital technology, a wider range of vocational qualifications and earlier access to student loans.

A recent Times report revealed that the government will now consider recommendations including releasing more prisoners on licence to take up jobs and greater access to vocational qualifications.

“There are over a million vacancies in the UK. So, there has never been a better opportunity for businesses to unlock the potential in our prisons. Getting more prisoners into work really is a win-win — it will cut crime by reducing reoffending and grow our economy to the benefit of us all," prisons minister Damian Hinds wrote in a foreword for the report.

“If implemented, our recommendations would represent a major step forward. Because while the need to restore control and order in our prisons remains an urgent priority, the power of these measures is that they are focused on restoring something altogether more profound. Hope," said Joe Shalam, policy director of the CSJ.