Reoffending rates remain stubbornly high in Wales with the latest available statistics showing the rate of former offenders committing further crimes is higher than the majority of English regions.
This reoffending is costing the UK taxpayer between £9.5bn and £13bn a year, not forgetting the personal and social costs to the individual and community.
Put simply, the system wasn’t addressing this problem – many of these prolific offenders, with a host of complex problems, are released on to the streets with £46 in their pockets and little else.
You won't find a better example than this:
But for the first time in recent history, virtually every offender released from custody in Wales is receiving statutory supervision and rehabilitation in the community.
Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) is a reform programme that’s changing the way offenders are helped to move away from crime. Delivered by a diverse range of rehabilitation providers from the private, voluntary and social sectors through 21 community rehabilitation companies (CRCs), the programme is providing an innovative service to rehabilitate low and medium-risk offenders. The newly-formed National Probation Service will continue to manage high-risk offenders.
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The Wales CRC has been operating since last summer, and now Working Links has taken over responsibility for enabling the CRC to develop and expand the services offered to offenders.
Together with probation staff mutual Innovation Wessex, we’re now contracted to deliver the sentence of the court for each offender allocated to us, and in doing so seek to rehabilitate those offenders and reduce reoffending.
Our aim is to reduce reoffending and protect the public
Our aim is to reduce reoffending, protect the public and deliver the sentence of the court. This will be achieved by ensuring effective service integration – right services, at the right time, in the right places; building positive offender manager relationships; developing robust risk management procedures; good communication with stakeholders; and ensuring the right volume of services are available to meet sentence expectations.
We have 15 years’ experience supporting people with complex needs, including those with convictions, but we know that working in partnership with expert organisations and our colleagues involved in the delivery of probation work will better support our customers with any individual needs they may have. The services our partnership delivers will reduce reoffending at a saving to the taxpayer.
The figures on how work helps stop reoffending
61%
Offenders who return to prison within 2 years
19%
Employed offenders returning to prison within 2 years
Working Links
For us, success will be helping offenders to turn away from a life of crime and preventing future crimes being committed and people becoming victims of crimes. Our ambition, whether it be with reducing re-offending or welfare to work, is to move people from social exclusion to social inclusion and build safer, more prosperous communities.
Our strength as a prime provider is that we are a hands-on organisation that delivers core services directly. This means we work with our customers on every step of the journey they make, meeting their specific needs such as accommodation, finance, benefit and debt, substance mis-use and family and relationship needs. We are keen to ensure social problems do not become further entrenched.
It’s our heritage as an employability provider that gives us the deep understanding of the work needed to overcome social obstacles.
Employability is an important part to TR because many of the skills we bring to bear working for our current customers can be applied to those with convictions in custody, on release and serving community sentences.
Working Links is committed to breaking the cycle of reoffending
Indeed, helping a customer with a history of offending find a job is one of the most effective ways of stopping reoffending. Employment facilitates the creation of social links, provides a sense of stability, and provides another critical factor too: an income.
Statistics show employment greatly reduces the likelihood of criminality. Quite simply, 61% of people leaving prison re-offend within two years but if they secure employment that drops to 19%.
Working Links is committed to helping break that cycle through ensuring more customers progress – eventually into work, but we know that will take time. An ex-offender with the right skills and training can often be the most loyal and hardworking member of staff, with a far greater commitment to the company that gave them the opportunity to turn their life around.
Moving forward, and implementing the new contracts from this month, Working Links will be reaching out to businesses in Wales to see what they can do in conjunction with us to lessen the burden of economic inactivity and improve social inclusion among former offenders.
We also look forward to working in partnership with probation staff and other criminal justice professionals to deliver the Transforming Rehabilitation programme, helping more people to turn their lives around for the better and building safer, stronger communities.
- For more information on how you as an employer can work with Working Links on overcoming the barriers to work for ex-offenders and the long term unemployed, contact WorkingLinksJustice@workinglinks.co.uk
