‘Back to the old ways' for jobless young offenders

Just under a decade ago, I visited a young offender institution with the first Children’s Commissioner for Wales, the late Peter Clarke. Peter had never been to such a place and I recall how he was quite affected by many of its characteristics.

He was, inevitably, most interested in how the young people there were dealing with their experience. We sat in a room with a dozen young men, talking at first about the conditions in custody, but moving eventually to what they hoped or planned to do when they were released. The majority mumbled that they were intending to “get a job”. When Peter asked what kind of work they would like to do, the next echoed remark was “not really bothered, any job”. Would they try to stay out of trouble, Peter enquired. They said that was their wish; they didn’t really want to end up “back here” again.

Peter had asked all the stock questions. The responses he got were new to him. I had suppressed a wry, perhaps despondent, smile at those answers, until we were on our own. We looked, knowingly, at each other: we were both thinking that these lads didn’t really have much of a chance of “going straight”. They lacked qualifications, came from the wrong neighbourhoods, had criminal records and hardly displayed the best inter-personal skills. But, we commented, at least they expressed some level of intent to depart from their criminal ways, however fictitious or unrealistic that intent might actually have been.

Since that occasion, I have continued to pay quite regular visits to young offender institutions. The conversations have continued to be much the same, just as they had been for many years prior to the moment described. Throughout my life, young offenders in custody have always expressed the desire, on release, to change the direction of their lives. Many hated custody and really did not want to be coming back. Many also had new challenges; often that was parenthood.

Change of perspective
They always talked about “getting a job” – any job – because they wanted things to be different in the future. Policymakers keen on promoting a “rehabilitation revolution” would, theoretically at least, be pushing at an open door.

Last year, however, I detected a change in attitude and perspective of those young people. I built the same conversations through asking the same questions. But when I got to their post-release intentions, there was not even the preamble of getting a job: they remarked pointedly that it would be “back to the old ways”.

When I suggested that they might try to get a job, their self-analysis was crisp and to the point – there aren’t any jobs, and if there are, kids like them are at the back of the queue.

This stark realism was something of a shock to me. I had become accustomed to the cushion or smokescreen of plans to desist from crime, before any more qualified discussion got under way.

Now it seems that young offenders don’t even see the point of that – if they are to live as they wish to, they have no option but to follow the ways of earning “a raise” that they know best. Austerity Britain has dissipated the slim prospects and promise of rehabilitation that at least entered the lexicon of young offenders in the past.
 
Howard Williamson is professor of European youth policy at the University of Glamorgan