How to get out of jail using a trowel

How to get out of jail using a trowel

“Doing this, I don’t feel like I’m in prison,” says Jon. “I feel like I’m properly working for the first time in ages. I’ve done some stupid stuff in my time, but this has really sobered me up.”

Jon (prison regulations dictate that we cannot use his surname) must be happy in his work if he can blank out Wandsworth prison in south London, where he is serving 18 months for burglary. The atmosphere here is tense: in the past two months there have been two suicides and a foiled escape plot.

This tension quickly spreads to visitors. Access to the bleak Victorian building is permitted only after consultation with the Home Office, and wardens lock each metal door we pass through before the next is opened. An official tells us that if we lose our identification, we shouldn’t expect to be let out.

Jon is spending his days laying bricks in a specially designed workshop. When he is released in four weeks’ time, he will become the first Wandsworth inmate to leave with a foundation construction award. Awaiting him will be a place at a centre run by the training arm of John Laing, which also organises the prison workshop, and a job on a construction site in London. It is a second chance that Jon, and others on the scheme, did not expect to have.

First of its kind

The brickwork centre at Wandsworth is the first training unit of its kind in an adult prison in London. It has been operational for six weeks, teaching eight prisoners basic bricklaying. The germ of the scheme first emerged 18 months ago, when prison directors began researching ways of providing inmates with skills that would help them find employment on release. The construction industry, with its massive order books and much-lamented shortage of workers, was an obvious taker.

Two officers at the prison had a construction background, but organisers wanted to involve employers from the private sector to ensure that the skills taught were relevant to the workplace. This would also be a bridge to help prisoners make the disorientating transition between inside and outside. John Laing Training was approached after Wandsworth’s head of activities was impressed with its civilian workshops for trainees. JLT was also a natural choice because it was in the process of setting up a training centre at The Mount prison in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. It is now in talks with several others, including the women’s prison at Holloway in north London.

Under the tutorship of JLT instructor Paul Townley, inmates study for three months towards a foundation construction award. They can then progress to an intermediate award, either at Wandsworth or, if released, at one of JLT’s London centres. JLT employment officers then help the trainees to secure jobs in the area by working in partnership with Jobcentre Plus, local authority clients and other construction firms, particularly those in John Laing’s supply chain.

Making a decent break

Prison governor Jim Heavens has lent his full support to the scheme, and has high hopes for the opportunities it will give inmates. “We are getting away from prison work that just occupies people while they’re here,” he says. “This is work for outside too, which should mean that there is less incentive to re-offend.”

Heavens is also pleased with the centre’s clean and airy appearance, which stands out against the maze of darkened corridors and heavy duty doors elsewhere in the prison. “This meant we could get rid of that awful old workshop,” he says gleefully, referring to the paintbrush-making centre that used to stand on the site.

The prisoners themselves share their governor’s enthusiasm. The scheme is about to admit eight more inmates in the coming weeks, but has received more than 60 applications for those places. Financial gain and the chance to change career ensure that the scheme is not short of applicants.

Cyril, a serial offender serving a seven-year sentence for drugs offences, says: “I’ve never had an opportunity like this, and I wish I had. I wouldn’t be back here then. Most people just want to have a life, a house and family, and they have to fund that somehow. The people inside just haven’t done it the right way: 80 or 90% of prisoners offend for financial gain. That’s what I did with drugs, and I’m ashamed of that. But I can’t believe the chance I’ve got now.” Cyril is 50 years old: his enthusiasm for reform is startling.

The desire to earn money from something other than crime is shared by Piers, who has seven weeks left of an 18-month sentence. Like many of the inmates, the centre is his first experience of bricklaying, but this doesn’t dent his desire to work in the trade on his release.

“It’s an amazing opportunity to be given a job at the end of all this instead of going back to the DSS,” he says. “Before, I was unemployed and bored, which led to me having problems with drink and then getting in trouble with the police, but now I want to go on to college and have a new career. It’s a turning in my life.”

The centre has also given Piers a sense of responsibility on the inside: the red armband he wears marks him out as a senior worker. It allows him to go unescorted onto other wings on brickwork centre duties.

Trial and error

With all the smiles and enthusiasm, however, it becomes easy to forget the problems the trainees may face as a result of their backgrounds. One issue is employers’ willingness to take on ex-convicts. JLT managing director Mark Lunn is hopeful that this won’t pose too many problems, but he knows certain types of companies are a non-starter.

“We have to be pragmatic,” he says. “Small contractors that work in and around people’s homes will be nervous about taking former prisoners, and there may be practical issues with insurance as well. But with larger companies, much more rests on a person’s capability to do a job and their willingness to start.” Lunn also points out that a company will probably know far more about the background of a former prisoner than they would of an ordinary job applicant.

JTL is talking to companies inside and outside John Laing’s supply chains about the possibility of offering placements, and Lunn says a number want to give the scheme a go. The organisation is also in discussions with Jobcentre Plus over employing workers on the Battersea Power Station project, which may provide a chance for inmates on day release to gain practical experience at a reduced wage.

Security within the training centre has also been a concern of organisers. Creating a situation where prisoners had ready access to tools and building materials posed obvious risks – a fact recognised by Roger Barker, one of the scheme’s two officer instructors. “We cannot have tools on wings,” he says simply. All inmates are searched when they leave, and all the workshop’s tools are numbered and signed out to individual workers. However, Dave Asker, prison head of activities, is keen to emphasize that this rigour is good practice for ordinary sites. “It’s a health and safety issue too. On any well run site, you shouldn’t leave tools lying around unaccounted for.”

The surprising advantages of a prison training environment also show themselves in the workers’ dedication, as JTL training officer Townley recognises. Townley has previously taught in ordinary JTL colleges, and says the inmates are progressing far quicker than their counterparts in the outside world.

“What would take college kids two years is taking these guys three to four months,” he says. “Any work I give them to do, they do right away. And if they aren’t happy with something, they’ll still take it down and do it again – even if I’ve said it’s fine.” The rigour of prison also means that the workers don’t have the chance to slack off. “At college, loads of the kids come back stoned after lunch,” Townley says despairingly. “I much prefer working here, despite the scary nature of the building itself.”

Whether Townley’s faith in his pupils pays off remains to be seen. Everyone involved in the scheme is pragmatic enough to recognise that some criminals may re-offend, even if they manage to find work on the outside. As we are escorted back through the iron gates into the world of natural light and stoned teenagers, with its lure of a quick buck through bending or breaking the rules, it is clear that the role of the centre will not instantly solve problems. However, it can provide an important option for the bricklaying inmates who will one day leave its walls.