Yahoo Finance Companies Urged To Hire More Former Prisoners
High street (BSE: HIGHSTREE.BO - news) businesses will hire more former prisoners and help get more ex-offenders into work under Government plans.
Forty major firms will be invited to Downing Street later this month to hear proposals which are the brainchild of Justice Secretary Ken Clarke.
Mr Clarke insists the businesses, including household names such as Virgin and Marks & Spencer (Dusseldorf: MA6.DU - news) , can hire ex-offenders without damaging their reputation or values.
He said they should be given support to improve their lives after leaving jail.
There is "no reason" why profits from prisoners' work should not be used to pay for the prisons that house them, he said.
"Introducing work experience and training to people who are serving their time and being punished in prison is altogether a more intelligent way of running the prison service," Mr Clarke said.
"There is no doubt that people who get sent to prison have made a mistake, society is entitled to look for them to be punished, but also society should be trying to do something to help those who have the gumption to sort themselves out, to resume an ordinary honest life as decent citizens when they leave.
"If you just incarcerate people, if prison is just a warehouse in which you keep people and then release them without guidance into the world, it's hardly surprising that half of them will be back within 12 months, having committed more crime.
"Many prisoners do not want to be part of that cycle. We need to facilitate the way in which people get back into a normal life and do not commit further crimes again."
He added: "I want eventually to see businesses manufacturing, providing services, from prisons on a commercial basis. There's no reason why they shouldn't help pay for themselves and the cost of the prison."
The Government is working with the CBI to ensure that measures are put in place to guard against unfair competition with ordinary businesses outside the prison gates.
Mr Clarke was speaking ahead of the launch of ONE3ONE Solutions, which will replace the Prison Industries unit in helping prisoners to improve their job prospects.
He said there are 131 prisons across England and Wales where there was the space for some sort of training and work-related experience.
"Some of that will be organised by what was our Prison Industries but more and more of it (will be) normal household name firms actually doing it as part of their social responsibility and the running of their business."
A Virgin Group spokesman said: "Everyone deserves a second chance and research shows that many ex-offenders are more committed and willing to do more than 'just the job' and are grateful for the opportunity to do something worthwhile."
He said it was "still relatively early days across the group", but added: "Sir Richard Branson believes this is the right thing to do."
A Marks & Spencer spokesman said the firm does not have a formal programme which targets ex-offenders but they can be referred to its Marks & Start scheme, which aims to support people who face barriers getting into work.
