The jail that has reduced violence by helping inmates escape from the gang

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/19/gang-violence-young-offender-institutes-prisons

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Kezo, 25, was brought up by his single mother in a tough neighbourhood; he knew other boys who were joining gangs, but says: “My mother kept us straight”. He was in touch with his Dad, did well at school, and had dreams for his future. Then, when he was in his mid teens, his mother was murdered and Kezo’s world went off the rails. “I was so angry and in pain,” he recalls. When several local gang members came on to him, offering to be a “bro”, asking him to join them, “I guess they spotted my naivety,” he says. “I didn’t realise I was being sucked into joining their activities: organised crime, violence, drug-dealing. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have any other direction … I thought these boys were my real family and would look after me come what may.”

It didn’t work out quite like that, as I learn on a visit to Thameside prison where Kezo is now serving a two-year sentence. As I sit across a table from him, in one of the pale-painted, rooms at the category B prison in south London, which is run by the private company Serco, he is sombre and thoughtful. Kezo describes the stark lesson he has learned about his gang “family” while in jail. “Not one person has been to see me or even made contact to ask after me since I came here,” he says.

Shae Wright, senior custodial group-offending case manager, and Simon Grant, a gangs worker for Catch22 – the charity brought into Thameside last year to work with gang members – help inmates to talk about feelings and fears and to explore with them what other lifestyle choices they could make.

Latest Ministry of Justice figures show the number of recorded assaults in English and Welsh prisons has increased by more than 1,000 over the last year, from 14,045 in 2012-13 to 15,441 in 2013-14. The government’s London Crime Reduction Board highlights the worrying significance of gang members driving such violence and offending in custody. And Nick Hardwick, HM chief inspector of prisons, has reported on unacceptably high levels of violence in young offender institutions, such as Isis and Feltham, named last year by the Howard League for Penal Reform as the most violent prison in England and Wales.

Yet since the Catch22 project began in April 2013, the number of violent incidents in Thameside has significantly dropped from a peak of approximately 90 violent incidents per month to fewer than 20. This 75% reduction is highlighted in an evaluation of the project published on 19 November. The research, Gangs in Prison, based on 19 in-depth interviews, clearly shows that leaving a gang is very difficult. “It is clear that they are coming from and likely returning to very challenging living environments. Prisoners often described their area as a ‘ghetto’ with few opportunities and high levels of crime and violence.”

Under the scheme, a new prisoner is visited by Grant or Wright within 12 hours of arrival for a chat, during which they find out whether they have gang involvement. A management plan is drawn up to ensure that antagonistic gang members are put into different parts of the prison and have different times for activities and visits. “We keep in contact with them in case any other issues arise. So, we might catch a drift that they’ve had a confrontation with someone or something and we’ll come back and see them. We do a lot of conflict resolution,” says Grant. Mediation is another part of the work, along with a weekly “circles” session – a group forum where painful emotional issues can be aired and discussed. “Teachable moments” – when prisoners such as Kezo become disillusioned about gang life – are seen as a vital heart of the programme, when prisoners may reveal the root causes of their behaviour.

John Biggin, Thameside director says of the £60,000-a-year project: “We have seen the value of working with gang members by using people who can get close and understand them better. We are convinced this focus has been vital in the big drop in gang violence we have seen.”

Model prisoners who have had gang involvement are trained to be “gang reps” within Thameside and given a mentor role to provide guidance and support for other prisoners. Kezo, who says he has now seen the folly in turning away from his flesh-and-blood family to a perfidious gang “family”, is now a “gang rep” and is determined to pursue youth work when he is released.

Desmond, 23, has also been chosen as a gang rep and talks movingly of being given an opportunity “for the first time in my life” to see that he might have value and move away from crime.

“I was a with bad gang and I have witnessed a lot I want to forget. I was stabbed. I was locked up the first time for having a firearm and I ended up here for drug dealing. But I had grown up with the gang and I couldn’t see how there would be a way out.” Now, he says, “I believe I can find a way to live differently and make a good life.”

Emily Setty, who is an author of the evaluation by the Dawes Unit, an arm of Catch22, that brings together research, policy and practice in order to understand how to reduce the harm caused by gangs and gang-related crime, acknowledges the complexity of gang members making a clean break. She says: “A substantial minority of the 19 interviewed explicitly stated that they had exited. What became clear, however, was that although they would say this, it was still possible for these prisoners to drift in and out of offending with the group.”

At present Catch22 does not track released prisoners, but it has plans to do so in future. Wright knows that some will return to gangs when they get back to home turf. Yet he believes this likelihood could be reduced with more people working intensively with gang members while they are in prison. But both Wright and Grant believe that rehousing families of gang members would give them the best hope of quitting their membership when they leave jail.

The work of the Dawes Unit is being evaluated by Hallam centre for community justice at Sheffield Hallam University. Given that the government says reducing violence in prison is a priority, you might expect it to look carefully at the success of the Thameside scheme with a view to rolling out the gangs project in other prisons. A spokeswoman at the MoJ would only say: “We are committed to running safe and decent regimes for all prisoners and we are working hard to reduce levels of violence and this includes tackling issues of gang affiliation. We have systems in place to quickly evaluate the effectiveness of innovative ways of delivering our work. Where we see positive outcomes, we will seek to spread that work across the whole prison system.”

But Biggin is in no doubt of the impact of the gangs project: “It will certainly go on being an integral part what we offer at Thameside and I think it could be valuable in other prisons.”

Some names have been changed. Gangs in Prison: The nature and impact of gang involvement among prisoners