The Foundation’s Big Idea Fund wants to experiment, to find out what really works so that it can be scaled up and used elsewhere. It is going out to brilliant charities and innovative prison projects that want to partner up and find practical solutions to one of our society’s biggest problems.  I believe a big idea like this has never been needed more.

I’ve been to prison. I served five years. And let me tell you, no one wants to go back. They want to get out and stay out. But I’ve lost count of the number of people I know who have come out of prison on a Friday, and by the Wednesday they are back inside. The sad fact is that three out of every ten prisoners released each year end up back in prison. No one wins from this.

There is no easy answer — but there is something that is proven to work, and that is work itself. Helping people gain skills that help them get and keep a job reduces reoffending by a third.

Read the full article on The Times Red Box: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/meaningful-work-will-keep-ex-offenders-like-me-out-of-prison-f6n0hwwgl