I just love those
days when you’re presented with something completely unexpected and you find
yourself surprised, delighted and inspired.
It wasn’t a
lottery win but still pretty special!
It was a bit of a
coincidence that on the morning I set myself the task of blogging about a great
experience, I found myself listening to Justice Minister Michael Gove
announcing that as a society we had collectively failed to attend adequately to
the redemption and rehabilitation of large sections of our prison population.
So what’s the
connection between my experience and the justice system?
Arranging a trip
last week to Cardiff to witness my daughter’s graduation, we asked her to book
somewhere for a celebratory lunch. She announced that it would be The Clink.
That’s all we knew.
We arrived to
find the restaurant located just yards outside the walls of HMP Cardiff. Interesting. I just assumed it was the location that had inspired
the owners to come up with that name. Wrong.
Welcome to dinner
with a difference at The Clink!
It looked at felt
like a normal though top end restaurant with a great feel and design, and an
open kitchen. We got a great welcome.
It wasn’t until I
started reading the introduction in the menu that we realised what was
different.
The kitchen and
serving team, and the cleaning staff are all serving prisoners.
Those with less than 18 months left of their sentence can apply to train for a City & Guilds NVQ in Hospitality &
Catering and Customer Service, including food preparation, front-of-house
service and industrial cleaning.
They work a 40-hour week, under
supervision, and train for between six to 18 months.
The
first Clink Restaurant opened at HMP High Down in Surrey after Alberto Crisci MBE, then catering manager,
identified the need for formal training, qualifications and support for
prisoners in finding a job after release.
Since then Clink, now operating as a charity, opened in Brixton, Cardiff
and this year in Styal, Cheshire. The restaurants at HMP Brixton and HMP High
Down are actually located within the prison walls.
Mentors help graduates find employment
and mentor them weekly for six to twelve months to support their reintegration.
On average, 50 prisoners a year from each restaurant are released into
employment.
It’s not just the food that’s
provided by the prisoners.
The tables, chairs and artwork in each of the four restaurants currently
operating have been produced in various prisons across the UK.
Much of the food
has been grown in prison gardens. The prisoners’ poems etched into glass panels
in doors and around the restaurant are particularly poignant and really quite
moving. They come from the Prisoners’
Poetry Book and A Collection of Art and Poetry, both
filled with work by prisoners at HMP High Down.
So how was
dinner?
Stunning and
memorable for all the right reasons. The service was exemplary, the menu
choice, although perhaps a little limited, was innovative with high quality
dishes beautifully presented. The fresh ingredients were cooked to perfection.
A fine lunch by any standards and highly recommended as a great dining
experience.
What was
noticeable was the kitchen team’s intense but in no way intrusive interest in
our reactions to the food they’d cooked for us. It was obvious that it really
mattered to them. During a brief conversation with one of our waiters, he
confided that he had been working at the restaurant for only five weeks and was
striving for an NVQ. It was said with real enthusiasm and pride. This was a clearly
a place that makes a difference.
The initiative has been an enormous
success. Within the first year of release, 46.9% of all adult offenders
reoffend. For those serving
sentences of less than 12 months this increases to 57.5%. Within five years, 75% will reoffend. Those who have been
part of the charity’s programme have shown a reoffending rate of just 12.5%.
That’s got to be good news for all
of us given that the cost to the taxpayer of keeping just one prisoner incarcerated
for twelve months is £44,000. And that’s quite aside from the social, emotional
and financial impact of the crimes that are committed through reoffending. It
makes you wonder just how effective imprisonment is as a long-term solution to
reducing crime, let alone rehabilitation.
There may never be a good excuse
for crime. You might have views about giving prisoners a second chance.
Clearly not for all offenders and I recognise that there’s no such thing as a
victimless crime but I can't help feeling that for a certain category of
offender who has it in them to recognise their wrongdoing and who wants to change,
the opportunity should be available.
I have a real passion for trying to
make a difference and for searching out opportunities to touch people’s lives
for the better. That’s precisely what’s happening at The Clink and at
other projects where the prison service is working with industry to create other
opportunities for offenders to engage, learn and rehabilitate.
The charity aims
to open ten units by the end of 2017. Currently, up to 155 prisoners are training at any one time.
Take a closer look http://theclinkcharity.org/the-clink-restaurants/cardiff-wales/
