the Sustainable Restaurant Association, each restaurant holding three stars. It has big-name chef ambassadors like Giorgio Locatelli, Antonio Carluccio and Cyrus Todiwala on board and later this year construction for the next Clink restaurant will begin in Manchester, subject to planning permission being granted, with a vision to provide ten training projects across the UK by the end of 2017. Perhaps most importantly it is having success bringing reoffending rates down. The national reoffending rate for prisoners in their first year of release is 46.9%. According to verified statistics, in 2010 14% of Clink graduates reoffended and in 2011 12.5% reoffended. Unverified statistics put the reoffending rate for 2012 at only 6%.
Lunch is finally over and I sit back replete and satisfied only to have it sprung on me that we can now go into the kitchen and meet the chef prisoners. I must admit my first reaction is one of nervous reluctance.
The atmosphere inside the kitchen is abuzz with the high spirits of a team who have successfully completed a tough and busy service. There is laughter; there is whooping; there is joking and horseplay; if anything it’s got more energy to it than a ‘normal’ kitchen on the outside.
Inside the kitchen I speak to one of the chef prisoners who we’ll call “Brian” for the purposes of this article. Brian has been running the pass and has overseen a mostly faultless service. He is still high off the adrenaline and explains to me how the brigade is moved around the different sections, each getting a turn on the pass.
Brian started when the restaurant opened in February and has already completed the first part of his NVQ. He is also studying a distance learning course in drug and alcohol awareness. He is inside because of mistakes due to drugs and alcohol he tells me but he should be out in October and he’s looking to the future. “I want to carry on cooking when I get out,” he says. “It’s a new skill and I’m
enjoying it, loving it.” He’s still buzzing from service and I am too when I leave the kitchen as well as being slightly ashamed about my earlier prejudices.
Brian is a beneficiary of The Clink’s five step programme –recruitment, training, auditing, employment, mentoring. It is the last two stages which are arguably the most crucial because 75% of prisoners released without secured employment reoffend within five years. In the last six weeks of their six-18 month training at The Clink, prisoners are given help to find employment when they are released. The Clink has relationships with Sodexo, Harbour and Jones, Compass, BaxterStorey, Travelodge, Premier Inn, Grosvenor House Hotel and other potential employers, all of which makes the task of finding employment easier. But it doesn’t end there. The mentoring stage means prisoners are helped from the first day of their release to six-12 months after, with weekly meetings to make sure they are staying on track as well as help with accommodation and other potential pitfalls.
It’s on the outside where the real battle is fought according to Chris: “It’s really hard when you leave prison. Society goes against you; your car insurance triples; home insurance triples; you might not get loans or mortgages or be able to open a bank account.”
I think about “Brian” who I met in the kitchen earlier, looking forward to getting back to his girlfriend and family and getting into a career in catering. I wonder if, come October, he’ll be able to use this opportunity to escape the mistakes of his past. The Clink, it would seem, is set up to give him every opportunity to do so.
I leave HMP Brixton an hour or so later – a release which I take for granted in a way that the staff of The Clink can only dream about. I have learnt a few valuable lessons today though and had a few silly preconceptions shattered. Prisons aren’t just full of dangerous ‘others’ who need to be locked up and punished; they’re full of normal people like” Brian” who have made and continue to make mistakes and who dream about better futures, like us all.
