WORKING FOR FREEDOM

Prison is a revolving door for many criminals. A revolutionary scheme is the
best hope of breaking the cycle, says Iain Bruce

"EVERY time I've walked out a prison door, I knew I'd be back; I just didn't
know how or where to get started on anything else. There's light at the end
of the tunnel this time, though. I've done the groundwork and I'm over the
rough before they've even opened the gates."

Andy Hamilton is what you would call a hardened criminal. The 24-year-old
has spent the last ten years dropping in and out of prisons all over Britain
for a variety of petty offences, unable on any of his numerous releases to
break out of the crime cycle, get himself a job and make a fresh start. He
is the archetypal repeat-offender.

Or he was. This time, with his latest liberty date looming in October, the
Barlinnie prisoner expects to enter free society with a handful of new
qualifications and a barrel-load of bright prospects thanks to the Pathway
Project, a revolutionary pilot scheme currently under trial at Scotland's
biggest jail.

The multi-agency initiative, co-ordinated by prison staff and funded by the
Home Office as part of the New Deal programme, is aimed at offenders aged
between 18 and 24 and intends to prevent them becoming the old lags of the
new millennium by offering a hand up into the employment market.

"Prisoners come in here through a revolving door," says Governor Ian
Whitehead, the head of prisoner activities. "They're poor, so they commit
crime, get caught, sent to jail, treat it like a big club and then start the
cycle all over again as soon as they're released. We can't address all of
the issues, but we are trying to get at one of the root causes. It's an
accepted fact that a job brings with it both inherent responsibilities and
less reliance on crime to supplement income. This is the first project ever
to tackle that by offering a bridge between prison and the outside."

Involving a host of organisations including Motherwell College, the Royal
Environmental Health Institute Scotland, St John's Ambulance, Glasgow Career
Service, the Employment Service and the Social Work Department, the scheme
began on 1 June and will run until the end of March next year. During this
period, 11 groups of between eight and ten prisoners will complete an
eight-week series of full-time educational modules to earn them recognised
qualifications in English, arithmetic, communication, first aid and
industrial skills. By focusing on realities such as state benefits, job
hunting and interviews, with the relevant appointments arranged prior to
release, Whitehead is confident that the participants will leave Her
Majesty's hospitality far better prepared than has historically been the
case.

Prisoners eligible to take part in the project are approached, asked to
consider taking part and then interviewed by staff before being admitted.

Although the work placement element of the course - industrial cleaning -
carries a weekly wage of A37, the second highest wage in the prison system,
no other incentives are on offer. "All we ask from them is commitment," says
Whitehead. "If they don't have it, then we find someone who does - we won't
waste time on anybody." All categories of inmate, no matter what their
crime, are eligible for a place. Many of the 12 English and Welsh
institutions also running the pilot have chosen to offer it only to
co-operative inmates and are rejecting those with bad discipline records,
but Whitehead feels that this would defeat the point: "Our argument is that
they're the ones who need it most, the people who won't behave. We're happy
to let the headbangers come to the fore if they wish to."

It seems to be working. So far, only one participant has been kicked off the
course for unco-operative behaviour, an encouraging statistic that both
Whitehead and special projects manager Alexis McFadyen, the Pathway
Project's ground-level co-ordinator, put down to a combination of the
course's usefulness and the emphasis placed on treating inmates as if they
were any group of free students preparing for employment. "We're challenging
the norm by trying to speak to them like grown men, not cattle," says
Whitehead. "It's important that everything here resembles exactly what
they'll meet outside, so that when they get there they're off to a flying
start."

The stress on normality is noticeable from the outset. The prisoners and
warders are mainly on first-name terms, they work in a building more akin to
a modern office than a place of incarceration and the inmates are actively
encouraged to offer their opinions on all aspects of the course.

From the beginning, they are made aware of the fact that it is up to them to
make it worthwhile, something that at least appears to have been taken on
board with some enthusiasm: "When this started, I thought it was just
another time-waster," says Gary Sloane, a 20-year-old repeat offender. "But
we're treated like trainees and not cons. It's the first time in the prison
system I've not been made to feel inferior and have been treated with a bit
of humanity."

Each of the course participants will complete their training shortly before
they are scheduled to be released. Great pains are taken to convey a feeling
of accomplishment, with completed qualifications being handed over in a
graduation-style ceremony at the end of each group's module. "For many, it's
the first time they've ever had something constructive to do with their
time," says McFadyen. "When they're handed that certificate and you shake
their hands to congratulate them they're amazed - it's the first time
they've had a sense of achievement in their entire lives."

All of the qualifications made available on the course are from
nationally-recognised bodies, with some being accorded serious weight by the
relevant industries. In the past, certificates have all been branded with
prison crests and were widely regarded by offenders as millstones around
their necks rather than a positive step forward. As Brenden Connolly, one of
the Pathway Project's first graduates, points out, the piece of paper he was
once given after completing a social education module in vehicle theft that
read "this is to certify that Brenden Connolly has completed a course in car
crime at Lowmoss Prison," is hardly the kind of thing you could show to a
prospective employer.

Rehabilitation initiatives come and go, but few succeed without the help and
confidence of the offenders taking part.

In this case, the participants at least appear to be 100 per cent behind the
project. Even during tea breaks, with staff out of earshot, a constant note
of enthusiasm bubbles under the conversation. Words like "opportunity",
"skills" and "presentation" pepper the air unprompted. "Most of the
worksheds are just slave labour," remarks 21-year-old Stewart Middleton.
"This way we get something out of it. We're the lucky ones, the guys in the
main halls would kill to get on this course." There is also genuine hope for
many who, like Paul Smith, a long-term offender battling a heroin problem,
had begun to believe that there was no way back into normal society: "For a
long time there I thought I'd never, ever get a job, but I reckon with this
New Deal coming in that maybe there are sympathetic employers out there -
I've got high hopes of making it."

Staff are visibly delighted with the progress of their charges, taking
considerable pride in the fact that the constant emphasis on teamwork to
prisoners helping each other out with their often lacklustre basic literacy
skills, but also to several students demanding homework at the end of the
day. "They're getting a bit of back door education in social skills," beams
Whitehead. "We're teaching them that it is actually possible to trust other
people without them turning round and shafting you."

The apparent depth of the inmate's faith in the Pathway Project is perhaps
best illustrated by their belief that it could provide an answer to the
burgeoning problem of prison suicides, a subject they determinedly raise
without encouragement: "Boys come in here strung-out on smack, are given a
drug substitute for four days and then flung in a cell and left to get on
with it until release," opines Middleton. "No wonder they're killing
themselves. At least this gives us something to think about other than the
jail." Whether the Prison Service will share their faith remains to be seen.

When the project comes to an end in March, the results will be pooled by the
agency's Research and Evaluation Unit, assessed and then submitted as a
longer-term proposal to the Treasury for approval. So far Whitehead is
confident of success, pointing out that if just one of every group attending
the course doesn't reoffend, the tax payer will have saved money overall.
His only major concern, indeed, is that he will have nothing to offer as a
replacement once this year's funding is exhausted: "The pilot is gaining
momentum among the prison population and there's an increased understanding
among staff, so I'm concerned that when the plug is pulled we'll be losing
an important resource that prisoners have come to depend on, that could
leave a void that will be very difficult to fill."

Of course the acid test will take place over the coming months outside
Barlinnie's walls, as each group of Pathway graduates faces the realities,
disappointments and temptations that freedom offers. However, Paul Smith,
for one, is convinced that the new life he faces will serve as proof of the
initiative's effectiveness: "It's like my golden handshake from the Prison
Service, something to take to employers and say: 'Look, I've done this.'
It's an opportunity that's given me something to look forward to in the
future. I've never felt like this before. Every time I got out, I knew I'd
be back inside sooner or later. At the end of the day you're on your own,
but I can safely say that this time, I'll definitely not be coming back."

Checked-by: Don Beck