Church’s New Initiative to Reach Ex-convicts

A high rate of re-convicted and re-committed offenders were recorded in the UK during 2002. It reached 55 per cent with 873 previously convicted adults committing 7,910 crimes up to August in the single area Staffordshire. It is also found that the number of younger offenders who are re-committing is even higher.

Criminal justice charities are calling for concern towards offenders. The church was accused of neglecting the vital role it has in rehabilitation. The Church of England, in response to these voices, has been working on a pilot project about reintegrating ex-convicts back into life outside prison.

The very initial step of the project is to set up a community chaplain in a particular area. Volunteers will be recruited and trained by the chaplain to give support to released convicts.

“This is a real chance to empower ex-offenders to break their offending behaviour by improving quality of life and establishing stable homes.” Steve Vincent, a former minister in housing project for people with drug and alcohol problems in Lancaster, explained some of the concrete supportive actions.

Vincent is now assigned to be the director of the landmark project that will start next month in North Staffordshire, the third highest non-metropolitan area in the country for re-offending and re-conviction.

The counselling for these ex-convicts who want new lives is carried out in the form of befriending and mentoring because it usually “means a huge amount to them to have someone show an interest in them”, according to Ms Vanessa Geffen, Social Responsibility Officer for Lichfield Diocese.

Geffen is looking forward to the large impact of this new project in relieving the re-convicted rate as well as level of fear in communities. She addressed the difficulties an ex-convict faces because of the discrimination from other people. She again stressed the importance of the role of the church in helping the prisoners with Christian teachings and faith. “We can live out our faith and make a real difference to people’s lives.”

“If re-offending is still a problem in the system, if issues of motivation are not addressed and if questions of reparation and restorative justice are not foregrounded, the victim is left worse off than before,” the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said he is pleased with the new project and urged for more restorative justice.

A re-offending prisoner is likely to be responsible for crimes costing the criminal justice system an average of £65,000, and the Prison Service say the cost of keeping people in prison is £35,700 a year.