In February, Prestige Recruitment visited the HMP Humber Prison to provide continued support for ex-offenders, helping them get back into work after release. This initiative is to help get prison leavers into stable jobs to help break the likelihood of re-offending and returning to prison, particularly in areas of drug abuse and petty crime.
Ninety-one prisons will benefit from this new initiative by spring 2023. By having a stable job and income, prison leavers can build a life for themselves to be proud of, minimising the risk of re-offending and thereby cutting out the cost of £18 billion.
This initiative will have recruiters like Prestige working with the prisons to ensure that offenders use their time to gain valuable work-based skills. Learning these skills will make them much more likely to get a job and be prepared for it. Prisoners who leave will then be supplied with job opportunities to go straight into work upon release.
We worked with Kate Menzies, the prison Work Coach at HMP Humber. Kate allowed Prestige to present our job opportunities to the candidates in line to be released and who had been working on being ready for employment. Allowing prisoners to hear about opportunities for work once they are released is key to helping with motivation and helping create a plan to prevent re-offending.
90% of employers surveyed about taking on ex-offenders have said that their candidates have been “motivated, reliable, good at their job and trustworthy.” By having employers work with the prisons, we ensure that prisoners know what employers want from an employee in preparation for their release.
For thirty years, Prestige Recruitment has helped many people with different backgrounds into stable employment as an established recruiter. We are proud to be a “Beat the Box” employer, creating fair opportunities for people with criminal backgrounds and convictions. This initiative allows prison leavers to compete for jobs by removing criminal history criteria to job application forms and reducing the stigma around criminal convictions in the recruitment process. If you have any questions about this, please contact us.