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Prisoners and ex-prisoners
Inside and out: People in prison and life after release
Lenka Setkova & Sarah Sandford
October 2005, 94 pages
At one of the women’s prisons we visited, the average sentence lasts nine weeks − usually just long enough for the woman to lose her job, her house and her children. Many of these women have been locked up for crimes such as extracting electricity from a meter or driving an untaxed car.
Inside and Out highlights how prisons are not succeeding in turning most ex-offenders away from crime. The report stresses the importance of rehabilitating prisoners and strengthening family ties to reduce the likelihood of reoffending.
Did you know?
- 70% of prisoners have two or more mental health problems and they are 13 times more likely to have been taken into care as a child.
- Nearly half of sentenced prisoners lost contact with their family whilst in prison.
There are a number of key areas where donors can offer support to help rehabilitate prisoners and reduce the likelihood of reoffending. These include:
- helping maintain ties between prisoners and their families
- helping prisoners with mental health problems receive adequate treatment and support
- improving offenders' skills to increase their chances of employment on release.
Read Investing in family ties, NPC's short report, which outlines the significant returns on investing in family ties through supporting prison visitors' centres.
‘When we visited Styal women’s prison near Manchester, some of the women boasted that they were born there. Patterns like these run deep and are hard to fix. Women are often locked up far away from home where it is difficult for their children to visit them. These children are at high risk of going into care and of those that do, one in ten will be convicted of a crime, just like their mother.’
Lucy Heady, NPC
Read posts on NPC's blog about young offenders, tackling reoffending, and how prisons use data.
See all NPC's research reports
Click here to see a full list of all reports NPC has published
Charity insight
''Over half of prisoners reoffend within two years of release, but research shows this is significantly reduced if prisoners keep in touch with their families while inside.''
