Unlocked Graduates: transforming the UK's criminal justice system

The first cohort of Unlocked graduates

Photo courtesy of Unlocked

Esme Miller explains the vital role that Unlocked Graduates play in rehabilitating prisoners in the UK, with the aim of reducing reoffending rates throughout the country.

Amongst the unprecedented chaos of the UK’s political landscape, amongst the firing line of competing ideologies, improvement within the UK’s prison and justice setting can still be achieved. How? By harnessing growing, stable evidence which demonstrates how the UK can reduce its outstanding rates of reoffending; by transforming prisoner-officer relationships within prisons.

What do you think of the job of a prison officer? Do you imagine someone in uniform patrolling corridors with a set of keys? Or, perhaps, someone restoring peace amongst ‘out-of-control’ and ‘violent’ offenders? There is certainly a degree of reality to these assumptions; locking doors, monitoring cells and resolving disputes is a fundamental part to a prison officers job. However, this fails to encompass the vital responsibility of prison officers to develop relationships with prisoners and support their rehabilitation. 

The job of the prison officer is arguably one of the most undervalued in the country, as we fail to recognise their role in supporting some of the most vulnerable members of our society. 48% of adults reoffend within one year of release in the UK, one of the highest rates in Western Europe. If we are to reduce this figure, we must acknowledge the extensive body of research underscoring the impact that prisoner-prison officer relationships have on a prisoners rehabilitation. 

A recent study drew from twenty-seven in-depth accounts of how rehabilitative processes and practices are experienced by prisoners. The study concluded that, through their daily interaction with prisoners, prison staff can either “undermine or support prisoner attitudes towards, and engagement with, rehabilitation.” More specifically, the study found that a lack of interest or empathy amongst staff showed to disrupt “any ethos of rehabilitation”. Another report from 2018 concluded that “safer prisons require a high level of staff skills to ensure that staff build ‘positive’ and ‘collaborative’ relationships with as many prisoners as possible to become aware of the ‘concerns influencing their everyday behaviour.’”

In the three Scandinavian countries, where crime is well below the European median value, prison officers fill both rehabilitative and security roles. Prison officers in Sweden, for example, are deemed ‘care-takers’ and ‘role-models’; members of staff work with prisoners on a one-on-one basis to focus on their resettlement and transition into society following their release.

So, whilst Sweden is closing prisons due to a declining prison population, our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has promised to open 10,000 extra prison places. In his manifesto, Johnson pledged to pursue “more offenders in prison for longer,” an approach reminiscent of the ‘nothing works’ attitudes of the 1970s. Nonetheless, predating Johnson’s recent populist antics, investment in rehabilitation has never been stable in the UK.

Whilst this may sound discouraging, a new organisation, Unlocked Graduates, provides an optimistic route forward. Unlocked was set up in 2016 as a grassroots movement to transform the way prison officers are viewed and, in turn, drastically reduce reoffending rates in the UK. Unlocked pursues an evidence-based approach, acknowledging the reality that reoffending costs the UK economy 18 billion pounds per annum, and that prisoners are some of the most vulnerable members of our society. It is shocking that approximately a quarter of prisoners were in care at some point in their lives. The ambition of Unlocked is to recruit brilliant individuals to work as frontline prison officers with the hope that they can make a direct difference to the lives of prisoners as well as identify problems in the system that should be addressed for wider system change. 

The programme trains individuals to build relationships effectively so that they may act as a point of contact for prisoners, and greatly assist in the rehabilitation process. Unlocked prison officers will help identify the needs of prisoners, and analyse the problems they may face upon release.

The experiences of individuals who have completed the scheme demonstrate the impact a prison officer can have on inmates, as well as the depth of responsibility they take on. “Every day-to-day interaction, no matter how mundane, is a chance to make a small difference - building trusting relationships with the men in my care means I can help them make different choices in the long term,” says Karan. While Deren explains: “It's no understatement that prison holds some of the most vulnerable people in society. This is one of the biggest motivators of my role, as I want to work hard to protect those at risk.”

The rapid expansion of Unlocked in the last three years reflects its success. In 2016, Unlocked worked in just six prisons, but now has officers working in over a quarter of closed condition prisons in the UK. Unlocked is also transforming the way in which students perceive the role of prison officers, which has not traditionally been viewed as a graduate job. Whilst just 3% of students said they would consider being a prison officer in 2016, Unlocked are now within the Times Top 50 Graduate Jobs. It will be interesting, as well as exciting, to see how these new officers can make a difference in the challenging prison environment.