Our aim is to ensure the arts are used within the criminal justice system as a springboard for positive change.

We represent a network of over 900 individuals and organisations that deliver creative interventions to support people in prison, on probation and in the community, with impressive results.

We support this transformative work by providing a network and a voice for all the talented and creative people who are committed to making great art with people in the criminal justice system.
Part of CLINKS (qv)

Beyond Recovery is a fast growing new social enterprise already making a proven difference to people with repeat offending behaviour, complex mental health issues and drug and alcohol problems who are involved in the criminal justice system.

Beyond Recovery aims to help people look beyond mere survival and existence, and instead to move forward, with hope, resilience and purpose in life. The impact of this work creates far-reaching ripple effects in communities, relationships, careers, business opportunities as well as complete recovery from previously intractable diagnoses.

The work of Beyond Recovery is based on an approach called the Three Principles, which was recently described as having a common sense simplicity with intellectual credibility [Kessel 2017] – this differs from many other approaches to tackling human problems in one fundamental way: it focuses on teaching health rather than treating illness. The model is rooted in a belief that we all have inner mental good health and teaches individuals how to access and sustain this health.

Criminon UK is a national registered charity and has been delivering distance-learning courses to serving prisoners and ex-offenders since 2003.

The Criminon programme teaches moral choices and equips prisoners with the life skills they need to stay on the straight and narrow and remain free from future offending. The programme helps them to gain the integrity to lead honest and happy lives.

Our aim is to improve the social welfare of offenders by assisting them in their education and rehabilitation, so that they can make a positive contribution to society.

Our programme seeks to address:

- Reading and learning skills
- Drug and alcohol abuse
- Self-respect and confidence
- Anti-social conduct
- Ability to solve problems

EQUAL supports service users, collaborates with other race equality and civil sector organisations, and negotiates with power to ensure a fairer criminal justice system for people of Black, Asian and Minority ethnic (BAME) heritage.

We address racial disparity in three key areas:

1.Prisons and Probation
2.Policing of BAME Young People
3.Youth Justice System

Good Vibrations supports people in challenging circumstances through communal music-making.

Insidetime is the national newspaper for offenders and ex-offenders. We provide a weekly online and monthly printed national newspaper for prisoners and detainees.

Inside Information was launched 2007 and became the No1 resource for up to date prison information and prison related services covering all UK prisons.

The whole service is designed and is maintained with input from former prisoners and their families. All the things they wished they had had available to them when they needed it are now in one easily accessible place.

All prison information is gathered directly from each individual establishment and a range of Legal Factsheets provided by various legal specialists provide simple explanations to prison law and other legal issues.

Key 4 Life is a British charity launched on 14 June 2013 to help reduce youth reoffending through the delivery of a rehabilitation programme to those in prison and those at risk of going to prison. Jonathan Joseph and Anthony Watson, the England and Bath Rugby players, have pledged their support to Key4Life, the young offender rehabilitation charity. The charity tries to assist young men in prison who may be having difficulty in not returning to a life of crime and becoming some growing static of reoffending youth in the UK. Since the charity started the 23 young adults that Key4Life have worked with, 8% have reoffended which is much better than the national average of 74%.

The London Anti-Crime Education Scheme was created in 1994 with one sole purpose in mind, to inform and educate young minds of the consequences of choosing to commit crime. After experiencing 20 years in various penal establishments, Charles, the founder of LACES, has dedicated his adult life and work to communicating the bleak and harsh reality of a life of crime, with the hope of showing others the futility of wasted years spent in prison. The principal behind LACES is to tutor young people or those at the beginning of a life of crime, and to facilitate the successful reintegration of young offenders back into the community. As a reformed criminal for the past almost 20 years, Charles has, with the support of local people, been able to compile an anti-crime education programme, visiting schools, colleges, young offender institutes and other establishments. Research has shown that people are influenced throughout their lives, especially through their developmental and adolescent years, by a variety of factors. It is these factors that may lead an individual towards or away from crime. Charles’s programme shatters the illusion of glamour that can often be attached to crime. Through powerful imagery and raw, brutal honesty, Charles relays the demeaning and degrading reality of the criminal justice system — from arrest, progress through the courts to imprisonment. Through this early intervention with children and young people at risk of offending, it is hoped that those young people who attend the programme will ideally choose not to offend or reduce their offending in both type and frequency. LACES is unique in the fact that it focuses solely on the damage and effects which befall the perpetrators of crime.

Are you interested to deliver services under the Ministry of Justice’s Dynamic Framework? Working with us, you’ll be able to free your teams up to focus on what they do best: delivering high quality services and interventions, without the added pressure of completing time-consuming admin. MTC remains committed to collaborating with partner organisations to deliver rehabilitative interventions to the UK probation sector and other commissioners. And we’re keen to partner with a range of organisations to deliver services across all Dynamic Framework probation regions and Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Lot Areas. We passionately believe that the key to transforming lives and reducing reoffending is to ensure the range of available probation rehabilitation interventions and services is as diverse, and local, as the needs of service users. And that a robust partnership model – with VCSEs, voluntary organisations and SMEs playing a vital part – is the best approach for the Dynamic Framework. We are particularly keen to continue to work with specialist partner organisations to develop a collaborative and transparent network of large and small providers, combining knowledge and expertise, to develop and deliver tailored and inclusive interventions to service users.

Only Connect is a crime prevention charity, established in 2006 by Danny and Emma Kruger. Since then Only Connect has evolved into one of the most highly regarded and effective crime prevention Charities in London, with a track record of halving the re-offending rate (New Philanthropy Capital, Unlocking Value).

We have over eleven years experience of working with young people who have been involved in the criminal justice system. We have delivered projects at all stages in the offending cycle: from delivering preventative work in schools across the capital, to working in London prisons for over a decade, to our community model that works in partnership with youth offending teams and probation services throughout the capital to minimise reoffending. Since 2006, our work has reached tens of thousands of Londoners, helping them to move away from crime.

Switchback’s purpose is to enable young men to find a way out of the justice system and build a stable, rewarding life they can be proud of.

Switchback Trainees are five times less likely to return to custody.

Through consistent, motivational relationships with a Switchback Mentor on both sides of the prison gate, we support young Londoners to change their relationship with society.

We share what we’ve learned to inspire change across the justice system and beyond.

The Chrysalis Programme helps people learn how to do things differently and better. We create capability. Our unique approach, The Chrysalis Programme, is a world class Personal Leadership and Effectiveness Development Programme. Chrysalis aims to stimulate peoples thinking, attitude, social capability and capacity. We enable those that work with us to think more positively, creating self-esteem, self-belief, self-confidence, self-motivation and hope.

The Corbett Network for prisoner re-integration is a coalition of over 105 decision-makers of major rehabilitation charities and organisations dedicated to reducing re-offending by supporting people with convictions find and keep a job. Members also offer mentoring, coaching, training and on-going support.

The Network Mission

Bridging the gap from custody to community by improving routes to employment

Primary aims:

- Engaging with employers from a wide spectrum, many of whom have skill shortages but do not yet consider recruiting people with convictions

- Providing support for self-employment options – back office, mentors etc.

- Providing support for entrepreneurial activity – start up grants, route to market, mentors

- Using social networks and media to publicise rehabilitation

Our Mission at Exit Foundation is to equip, empower and encourage ex-offenders,adults and young people that want or require help in making positive life choices leading into a brighter life. We provide support and mentoring to those who want to exit a criminal and gang-related lifestyle. We major on building relationships first and foremost by establishing the trust required to mentor individuals into employment,training, and education. We work with offending behaviour including, but not limited to, gang affiliation, knife crime, violent behaviour, drugs, and county lines.

We provide through-the-gate mentoring to people leaving custody, throughout the London area. We also run behavioural change programmes, helping people involved in crime to make better decisions and reduce the number of people who re-offend, improving lives, lowering crime rates and reducing the cost to the tax payer. We know that people will only change if they want to. We listen in order to understand the reasons that people offend in the first place, then provide help to enable them to create new lives, free from the anxieties of their past.

Our vision is to end youth re-offending for good. We do this by mentoring and encouraging young offenders to make a positive change and providing them with the tools, support and opportunities they need to continue on their new path when they are released. Contrary to what some people believe, prisons in the UK do not provide a stimulating environment for change. Mentees sometimes spend up to 23 hours a day in their cells and the only people they talk to are fellow inmates or prison officers. Mentoring allows them to speak to ‘an outsider’. Someone who doesn’t tell them what to do or judge them for the things they may have done, but someone who can help them see a different path and offer the guidance they need to create a better future. Our work impacts hundreds of lives daily and this is what drives us on. Our mission is to enable young offenders to become catalysts for positive change in their communities. Our mentoring service doesn’t stop at the prison gates. For us it’s not just about preventing a young person from reoffending and going back into prison. The real value comes by inspiring them to spread their message, their experiences and to educate others from similar backgrounds or vulnerable positions that there is always another way.

Our outdated criminal records regime is holding hundreds of thousands of people back from participating fully in society. Even a minor criminal history can produce lifelong barriers to employment, volunteering, housing and even travelling abroad, many years after people have moved on from their past. The system needs to change.

The #FairChecks movement is calling for the government to launch a major review of the legislation on the disclosure of criminal records to reduce the length of time a record is revealed. We are looking for reform in the following areas:

1. Reducing the length of time a person’s conviction is revealed on basic checks.

2. Making a more proportionate and flexible system to what is revealed on standard and enhanced checks that protects the public without unduly harming people’s opportunity to get on in life.

3. A distinct approach to records acquired in childhood and a more nuanced approach to those acquired in early adulthood.

4. The introduction of review mechanisms so that no one has to face a lifetime being held back by their past without the prospect of review at some point.

We want a disclosure system that is fair and gives people a genuine chance of moving on and contributing fully to society.