In terms of reoffending, the proven rates are misleading at best, hovering around 30 per cent. In actuality, it’s closer to 100 per cent. Take 100 prisoners and ask them if this is the first time they’ve been inside, or been convicted, or committed a crime. You won’t see many hands.
The social consequences for this malfunctioning of individuals and systems are millions of crimes against people and property, and billions of pounds, every year, and the loss of the alternative futures that could have been lived.
Put someone away for six months with no one but criminals to associate with, then release them into an environment awash with criminals, criminality, and drugs, with no money, no job, no role models to suggest any other way, and the probability of them being transformed into a citizen is almost zero. It would take a miracle, an act of God, to take their heart of stone and put a new spirit within them. To change their heart, and transform their minds.
So they won't give me an interview but they will happily give an ex offender a job?