Too Risky?

Eric Allinson the prisons correspondent of the Guardian wrote an interesting piece for the paper way back in 2007 on a new project being set up at that time called Gate Mate. An initiative by The Princes Trust in partnership with other organisations such as Clinks, the article explained that:-


"Former prisoners are to be appointed to every probation service in England and Wales in a bid to cut the number of young offenders who return to crime after a spell in prison.

The scheme, which builds on an initiative by the Prince of Wales, aims to break the cycle of reoffending by young people.

Following a summit at Clarence House at which Prince Charles met 25 ex-offenders, ministers are working with the Prince's Trust and the probation service to set up a network of former inmates to act as key advisers to the 42 local probation services.

The meeting was called after the trust received hundreds of letters from former prisoners who said that without the help of the charity they would have been back in jail.

Only one of the 25 ex-prisoners at the summit said they had been met by anyone on leaving jail.
Under the new scheme, former prisoners will be appointed as "gate mates", offering one-to-one support to newly released offenders.

One of the first is Mark Johnson, who has been appointed to the probation service in Dorset. Seven years ago, Mr Johnson was a drug addict living on the streets, until he turned to the trust for help.

He now visits young offenders in prison, and said he is overwhelmed by their response to the proposed gate mate scheme."

This sounds like a brilliant idea and I notice that some four years later the GateMate website says:-

"GateMate is striving for the voluntary and community sector to provide a national mentoring service for young adults (aged 18-24) leaving prison."

So what happened to:-

"Former prisoners are to be appointed to every probation service in England and Wales in a bid to cut the number of young offenders who return to crime after a spell in prison."

Possibly the answer lies with the Probation Service having become so bound up with the issue of 'risk' that they've simply decided to steer clear of the thorny issue of allowing ex-offenders to become volunteers. I recall this always was an issue in the past when my own Service had a thriving volunteer organisation, but then summarily decided to dump the whole volunteering thing as not being effective or worthwhile.

I remember thinking at the time how shortsighted and out of step this was with developing ideas on the benefits and synergies of ex-offenders being able to help other offenders. But this requires the taking of some calculated risks. Of course there was a time when the Probation Service would have been in the vanguard of such exciting and innovative developments, but not any more it seems, weighed down as we have been by proscriptive NOMS control and increasing prison philosophy. 

Having said this, I'm aware that several Trusts are experimenting with mentoring projects, but this seems to be on the basis of partnerships with other organisations, rather than via the route of direct volunteer accreditation. I can't help feeling another missed opportunity.