A conference on Reducing Reoffending and Changing Public Perception is to be chaired by Gethin Jones, a former prisoner who now works as an inspirational speaker and prisons advisor.

Gethin, who founded Unlocking Potential upon his release, heads a line-up of speakers who will discuss the latest best practice designed to reduce reoffending rates amongst adult and juvenile offenders.

This one-day conference – which takes place on October 2nd at St Alban's Centre, London – will bring together leading authorities from the Probation Service, Police, Courts, Prisons, Local Authorities, service commissioners, healthcare organisations, housing, voluntary & private organisations working with offenders.

Jacqueline A (Bennett) Hollows MSc is the founder of Beyond Recovery CIC – an organisation working in the CJS with an innovative Freedom of Mind programme which has been evidenced and had a profound impact over the last five years. Here, she tells the story of what happened in one of her groups when a previous graduate died of a drug overdose…

Mind Beyond Bars #01-19– Charlie’s story

You get to hear and all sorts of things when running groups for inmates in prison.  All of humanity turns up in these rooms.  Gritty stories of hardship and wrongdoing, traumatic stories of lives damaged, stories of hope and change, and stories of pain and suffering. 

Static Systems Group’s extensive expertise in developing fire solutions for custodial facilities  is behind the company’s latest innovation: a control system which fully integrates a prison’s fire alarm system with high-pressure watermist fire suppression equipment.

EvoMist™ has been developed by Static Systems in response to the Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ’s) latest technical specification, Spec 054.

The system was designed, manufactured and tested at Static Systems’ in-house manufacturing facility in the West Midlands. It is the first integrated fire alarm and fixed misting system of its kind to be deployed in the UK’s custodial facilities, having being installed in early 2019 by Static Systems at a Category C men's prison in the East Midlands where it will protect around 200 prisoners in the facility’s new house block.

The ECM702 is a small portable unit designed to be used to inhibit the use or contact with all types mobilephones, within a specific area. The unit can operate using its internal battery for between 3-4 hours or for longer periods thorough the use of an external 12VDC power source. Six independent transmitters covering all GSM, 3G and 4G frequencies are connected to a special antenna array in the lid and allow the user to concentrate the countermeasure signals into areas of interest.

Each transmitter is programmed via a special app running on a Windows based PC.

Rosie Hart, the director of Kairos Women Working Together, discusses with the Custodial Review the work which the small Coventry charity does to support women prisoners at risk of exploitation, including women in prostitution.

Could you outline the work you do with women in prisons?

Kairos Women Working Together (KairosWWT) is a grassroots charity in Coventry supporting women at risk of sexual exploitation, including those caught up in prostitution. We meet our service users through outreach and drop-in sessions that we run, as well as receiving referrals from probation services, prisons that know of our work and from other partner agencies locally.

The Custodial Review editor Victoria Galligan spoke to Pete Bell, the founder of the Step Out Stay Out programme within prisons. Here, Pete describes how sport turned his life around and set him on a path to help others to rehabilitate… 

Pete Bell isn’t just a football coach. He is also a mentor to the inmates he works with and can empathise with them as he has spent time in prison on the other side of the cell door.

From 1990, Pete served time in the Criminal Justice System and says, “I racked up 10 convictions, I was drinking heavily and had been through a custody battle – and then my son passed away. He was two.

“What turned things around for me was when I faced my final sentence five weeks after my son died – I was expecting to get around five years in prison.

“But the judge’s humility towards me meant that he could see that sending me to prison was not right for me.”