"Why Resettlement?" - Jane Daguerre and Oliver Chrimes (WYCCP)
Tuesday December 2nd, 4.15pm - Room TBC
Tuesday December 2nd, 4.15pm - Room TBC
Our platform aims to explore different challenges experienced by men leaving prison and returning to West Yorkshire.
“Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human, All Too Human"
West Yorkshire Community Chaplaincy Project is a resettlement organisation which reduces re-offending and contributes to building safer and stronger communities. Located at HMP Leeds, they work ‘through the gate’ with prisoners inside HMP Leeds and HMP Wealstun and post-release throughout West Yorkshire. WYCCP provide practical support and encouragement to men to help them make positive life choices in order to re-integrate into the community after prison.
The project was originally envisaged by the multi-faith chaplaincy team within HMP who were frustrated by the constant re-offending of some men, who, they were sure, could be helped by non-judgmental practical support of community chaplains and trained volunteers.
Members of the original WYCCP board included Quakers. Quakers have a long-standing historic involvement with the criminal justice system on both sides of the bars. This involvement continues into the present day with a commitment by Quakers to address the criminal justice system at all levels, from individual prisoners to responding to government consultations. In the early days of the Quaker movement, many Friends were imprisoned for their beliefs. Ever since, there has been a continuing concern for prisoners and the conditions in prisons, exemplified in the work of Elizabeth Fry, which is continued by Quaker Prison Chaplains today. Quakers, via their work in the criminal justice system, promote restorative justice, which aims to keep everyone who is harmed by crime at the centre of processes and criminal justice systems.
Find out about WYCCP by visiting their website www.wyccp.org.uk.
Jane Daguerre has been the Director of the West Yorkshire Community Chaplaincy since September 2009. She has previously worked as Chief Executive of Active Faith Communities, a multi-faith, multi-cultural charity set up in 2002. AFC focused both on supporting faith communities in West Yorkshire to develop social and community projects and in promoting and developing community cohesion. Previous to that, Jane established Leeds Voice as the Community Empowerment Network for Leeds and ran it for eight years. She has also worked as a Development Manager, a Start Afresh and Volunteer Co-ordinator and a Basic Skills Co-ordinator, roles which have given her a wide range of experience of the voluntary sector, of issues around volunteering and of working widely with the diverse and disadvantaged communities of Leeds. | Oliver Chrimes is WYCCP's Resettlement Co-ordinator and ETE worker. He is responsible for supporting gentlemen, returning to West Yorkshire from prison, to get back into work or work-related activity. These service users benefit from intensive support around the full spectrum of issues that have led to unemployment. "One of the most rewarding aspects of my work is to see someone who has previously thought of themselves as unemployable and resigned to a life of either prison or benefits gaining the confidence and skills to return to society motivated and ready to contribute." Oliver also has a lot of input into the volunteer scheme and its training, in which ex-offenders are coached to help others make the changes they themselves have made, allowing them to contribute towards improving people's chances in a system they are familiar with. |
PLATFORM NOTES
The platform began with a really interesting quiz designed to check our initial knowledge, presumptions and maybe even prejudices about offenders in the prison system and about criminal justice more generally. Download the quiz by clicking on the image.
You can compare your responses to the answers, which can be found by clicking here.
Our work on the quiz was followed by viewing the following short animated film, entitled "The Hard Cell", which was created by The St Giles Trust, and focuses on how it is possible to break the cycle of re-offending.
You can compare your responses to the answers, which can be found by clicking here.
Our work on the quiz was followed by viewing the following short animated film, entitled "The Hard Cell", which was created by The St Giles Trust, and focuses on how it is possible to break the cycle of re-offending.
The final movement of the platform was the most demanding. Having split into groups, each group were asked what they thought men and women most needed on release from prison. We then considered what the perceived barriers were to resettlement - issues such as Housing, Work, Discrimination or Relationships. One of these ideas were allocated to each group, and they were challenged to solve these barriers - they had to innovate and create new ways of lifting these barriers and eradicating these problems for ex-offenders. This challenged us not just to think idealistically, but to think also realistically - grounding our responses in the reality of our society, just as policy makers, governments, and most intriguingly as citizens would have to do. More often than not, we found that many of our solutions ran into problems of the NIMBY citizen - one who might be all for such resettlement work in theory, but when push comes to shove, thinks, "Not In My Back Yard". How to break beyond the everyday citizen's own prejudices and perhaps ignorance, and how to develop greater education around this issue, while at all times being mindful of the difficulties of spending taxpayers' money, were questions that made such a task particularly difficult to solve.