Oops, we did it again…. Again. For the third time, Make Time Count has been successful in our InnovateUK smart grant application.
Following two successful projects, firstly to digitise the out-of-court resolution process for police, and secondly to address the challenges of court backlog, we have once again been trusted by the InnovateUK assessors. This time to take on the challenge of prison employment. According to Innovate assessor “the project tackles an important social problem in rehabilitation of ex prisoners into meaningful work to prevent reoffending.” We scored an amazing 88.9%, our best score yet.
During Covid, many of us got used to working from home, from bedrooms, dining room tables and other makeshift workspaces. Communication via video call and email became the norm, the word “teams” became synonymous with online meetings. Even after three years at least one person can be relied upon to forget the unmute button!
This development got us thinking. If we could all work remotely from our own private cells, could we not expand this way of working to those residing in His Majesty’s cells?
A screen and keyboard are the only tools a lot of us need to conduct our daily business. Surely we can extend this to inmates within the confines of a prison. Not only does this provide valuable employment within prison, but can be used as a way for providing apprenticeships and other transferable skills for inmates to continue employment post release. We know that having one of the key factors in reducing re-offending upon release. According to the Ministry of Justice evidence shows that ex-prisoners who have a job are nine percentage points less likely to go on to reoffend, while 90% of businesses that employ them found them to be reliable, motivated and trustworthy staff.
There are many types of employment currently happening within prisons. Often this is more manual labour, but there has been attempts at employment, such as call centres. Using this InnovateUK grant Make Time Count intends to expand our justice platform to provide a secure connection for employers to interact with inmates to provide digital labour. Software testing, usability testing, search engine optimisation or coding. All of which can be done from prison.
Make Time Count intends to be the first employer of our own initiative. As part of this project, we will employ inmates to test our platform. We plan to find other employers that want to follow our example, providing inmates with the skills required for the 21st century.
If you have any questions about our proposal or if you are an employer looking to hire people directly from prison please drop us a line at hello@maketimecount.today.