Interview by Miguel Peromingo, Freelance Consultant and Writer
The Corbett Network for Prisoner Reintegration is a coalition of charities, social enterprises, CICs, non-profit organisations and businesses with a social mission to bridge the gap from custody to community, thereby trying to support routes to employment and integration back into society. We spoke with the founder Lady Val Corbett
Lady Val Corbett, how did the Corbett Network come to life?
I come from a very different world. I am a media person. I was working for national newspapers the BBC and other television broadcasters. When my husband Lord Robin Corbett of Castle Vale – who was passionate about prison reform – died in 2012, my life changed in many ways. A few weeks after he died, I was watching a golf program on TV. I am not really interested in golf, but the winner of the tournament that was on, looked in the sky and dedicated the win to his deceased friend, a Spanish golfer, and he said these words that would impact my life. He said: “All men die, but some men live on.” I sat up and thought, that’s what I need to do. I need Robin’s legacy in prison reform to live on. So, all I’ve done is really establish two networks in his name. The first one is the Robin Corbett Award for prison reintegration, which is an annual award presented at the House of Commons, awarding prize money to three charities who do the most in supporting people releasing from prison. Through that I kept meeting people in the prison reform sector who were working in their own little pond, and I thought, wouldn’t it be a good idea to work in a sea and commonly tackle the tremendous problems in the UK prison system. This is how we organised the Corbett Network for Prisoner Integration. Today, we have over 140 members from the non-profit and also profit sector. I don’t mind people being commercial if they’re doing it for the right reason. We started from a very low base, but increasingly I became aware that the prison system is unworkable in this country.
Why is it unworkable?
The reason is that it has not changed its format for a very long time. We are like the US system of mass incarceration: huge prison warehouses with men and women doing nothing, and they go out being either the same as when they got in, or much worse. And when you think of these people being released eventually into the community, do you want to live in a community with people who are unchanged, or worse than they went in? Or do you want to look at a person who has been changed because he/she went to prison?
Certainly, the latter
So that’s what we have to aim for. We need to look at other countries. The Netherlands had 150,000 people in prison, then they had a reform in 2009 and today they have 50,000. They mainly did this by changing public perception, fight the stigma. I am supporting a returning citizen who was in prison for one week because of a minor tax fraud which he paid back instantly. Still, he had to sit in prison for a few days and now nobody wants to give him a job. It’s ridiculous. Let’s change, where possible, from incarceration to community service, like in the Netherlands. 70,000 people are released from UK prisons every year, but only 17% get support, and that support has got to be absolutely increased as well.
Who would be taking care of community services and support?
Well, the Minister of Justice Dave Simpson has gone on record saying that two-thirds of people in prison shouldn’t be there. Only 6% of people in prison are violent now. They should be there, and they should be kept. They are bad people. They need to be in prison for life. I understand that, but most prisoners need not be there. They’ve got addictions. They’ve got mental health problems. They’ve got trauma. They need help. Members of our network give them the support either for finding health support or a job mentoring, coaching, education, or training. This work is very hard. It’s often two steps forward and nine steps back, but they persist. I’ll give you an example: Frankie was in prison in Peterborough, which is in the north of England, and he was released one cold December with very little money, nowhere to live, no future, no job, nothing. He went to live with his grandmother, but he had done an in-prison coding course with one of our member organisations and is now coding for Lloyd’s Bank in Leeds.
The bank did not take issue with employing someone who had been in prison?
They were hesitant, but also desperate to find the right skills. They had never ever employed anyone from prison before. They tried after consulting our member organisation and six months later the organization got a call from the Bank, where they asked if they had more people like Frankie, who recently got promoted. That’s the message: If you give people a chance and support them, some people need more support than others, they thrive. We shall have returning citizens, not ex-jailbirds.
How challenging is it to train people while in prison?
Some of our members have started employability boards within prisons to upskill men and women. They actually get employers into the prison to interview and certainly some of them have got jobs through that before they are released. I’m not saying that the prison itself doesn’t do anything, but they are just overwhelmed at the moment. In 2010 the Government made lots of experienced prison officers redundant to save money, so the new prison officers are inexperienced. The turn-over factor is high because the job is not easy, although I think that the salary is fine. Still the system is short of 10,000 staff. Staffing is a general issue. There are various courses you can do in prison. I went to one prison where they had a stonemason course and the quality was incredible, but there were only 10 or 12 prisoners in the course with two prison officers watching over tools and keeping down violence potential. Many courses end up with long waiting lists and lost potential.
Do you usually stay in touch with people you’ve helped?
Yes, I do. I helped one woman who is a solicitor with 25 years spotless service. She was put in prison because two of her assistants embezzled some money, and because she was the head of the department, they thought she knew about it, although she didn’t, or suppose she should have. She went to jail, and for 17 months she tried to get a job, and then came to me after seeing me on LinkedIn. I got her a job with one of our members, and she’s extremely happy there, about to be promoted as well, because she is really good. If you give people a second chance, they grab it.
What do you think your husband would say if he saw what you have achieved?
Well, I hope he would be very pleased. He used to say: “Prison isn’t full of bad people. It’s full of people who’ve done bad things.” Most need a task to change. A prison shouldn’t be society’s revenge. We need to change people, and that’s the whole point. I’m very proud of the work the Corbett Network does.
