Ismail Mulla: How businesses should be key to preventing re-offending

At the door I was met by a young gentleman called Razaqat Hussain who welcomed me with a firm handshake. After meeting with several people from the company, I was seated opposite ‘Raz’ as he is affectionately known by his colleagues.

For me this meeting served as an eye opener. Hussain had a list of past convictions as long as your arm. He told me how if The Rightfuelcard Company had not stepped in, and offered to train and employ him, his downward spiral into crime may have continued.

The most striking thing to emerge from this meeting, for me, was the fact that he and I had grown up on the same street. We’d never met each other before even though there’s only a few years’ difference in terms of age between us. Despite the geographical proximity we’d inhabited different worlds.

It got me thinking, is the way we currently deal with ex-offenders working?

Before I joined The Yorkshire Post I’d have said those on the wrong side of the law deserved to be marginalised.

But over the past couple of years I’ve spoken to those in law enforcement, charities and most crucially ex-offenders. They all say the same thing - a steady job goes a long way towards lowering re-offending rates. Mabs Hussain, chief superintendent of West Yorkshire Police, last summer told me: “The normal approach from police in terms of arresting and convicting only has limited success.”

He called on businesses to do more and give ex-offenders another chance, citing Timpsons, the shoe repair retailer, as a good example. Heather Phillips, a Yorkshire-born former corporate lawyer who now runs her own charity initiative working with prisoners, said a similar thing to me last week.

Ms Phillips’ Beating Time initiative helps prisoners develop soft skills through choir singing. She told me how sometimes “quite damaged” people were flourishing when they felt they belonged, as they do in a choir.

While there are businesses such as The Rightfuelcard Company out there extending an olive branch and in essence doing society a great favour, there are still too many pulling up the drawbridge. Ms Phillips says that society is far more punitive and that businesses are “very risk averse” when it comes to employing ex-offenders.

Herein lies the faultline, when it comes to breaking the circle of crime. Businesses have to balance the risk with the benefits, and there are benefits - people who are given a second chance sometimes reciprocate with a really high work ethic and greater loyalty.

However, with a proper HR policy in place and by investing time and resources in these people, businesses can reap the benefits.

Prisoners are spending more time couped up in their cells watching daytime television, Ms Phillips says. With her experience of going into prisons and working with ex-offenders, she finds that many want to get out of their cells. Perhaps more businesses can take a proactive approach and engage with prisoners. I’m not suggesting that it’s all butterflies and tulips behind prison walls. But judging from what I’ve heard and seen there are ex-offenders looking for that olive branch.

Another way society could bring down re-offending rates is by supporting ex-offenders in starting up their own business. Ms Phillips makes a very a salient point when she says that just by moving those with a criminal record away from their past, could help break the circle of re-offending.

I have spoken to a few ex-offenders who have gone down the route of starting-up their own businesses and just by trying they are making a success of it.

Business may well hold the key to unburdening our crowded prisons.