Why we employ prison leavers at Redemption Roasters

For any of our new blog visitors who don’t know much about Redemption Roasters, we are a speciality coffee company on a mission to reduce reoffending in the UK. Redemption is one of 400+ businesses working in partnership with prisons in the UK to provide work and employment opportunities to prisoners and prison leavers. The way we reduce reoffending is two-fold: through providing training both in and outside of prison, and by providing employment opportunities to prison leavers in our London coffee shops. To read more about how this works, read our blog post ‘Social impact: what we do’.

Whilst our impact work begins with training prisoners, prison leavers, and individuals ‘at risk of offending’* with the coffee industry skills needed to kickstart a meaningful career in the coffee industry, a large and particularly significant part of what we do is employing prison leavers. This is because secure employment, particularly following release from prison, is an important factor influencing the likelihood of reoffending.

The Bromley Briefings: what the reoffending data tells us

In February, the Prison Reform Trust released its bi-annual report, known as The Bromley Briefings, highlighting the facts and figures about UK prisons and the people in them for 2023. This report, which largely uses government statistics, provides an in-depth and reliable account on prison conditions. The report covers a range of areas, including sentencing, the state of prisons, and rehabilitation and resettlement.

The data from this report on the relationship between reoffending rates and (un)employment are of particular interest to us at Redemption, as it demonstrates the need to provide employment opportunities to prison leavers. Whilst reoffending rates are open to criticism as they can be difficult to calculate and can vary depending on the method used to calculate them, the data strongly suggests that unemployment (along with other factors) following release from prison, contributes to an increased likelihood of reoffending.

Only 28% of people released from prison in 2023 were in employment within a year of their release. Of those reconvicted in 2023 following release, 59% were unemployed, versus those employed standing at 39%, which highlights the positive effect employment can have on a reduction in reoffending rates. Similarly, whilst the national reoffending rate for 2023 stood at 38% according to this report, at Redemption the reoffending rate for our employed Participants in 2023 was only 4%.

Yet for many prison leavers, a criminal conviction is a significant barrier to them gaining meaningful employment on release, and their ability to lead a ‘law-abiding life’, as employers may have policies which bar individuals with a criminal conviction from working for them (Bromley Briefings, p.71).

The feedback we have received from Participants* on our barista and technician courses, including from Participants who have gone on to employment within our shops, is also a really valuable tool to demonstrate the positive impact our training, support, and employment can have on individual lives. Participant “M” who went on to be a barista in one of our coffee shops illustrates this with the following quote:

“Me and my co-defendants were at an extremely high risk of reoffending, and I honestly believe that if it wasn’t for Redemption, I would be back in prison right now.”

To read Participant “M”’s full story, click here.

For a clearer understanding of the journey a Redemption Participant goes through from in-prison training to employment in our shops and beyond, see the illustration below.

A Redemption Participant's Journey

To find out more about our social impact, please read our 2023 Social Impact Report, or the summary of this on our blog.

If you have any questions about Redemption Roasters’ social impact, please contact impact@redemptionroasters.com

Definitions

'At risk of offending': Some of our Participants are defined as ‘at risk of offending’; meaning they have lived experience, or are reasonably suspected of having lived experience, of key factors linked to offending behaviour. These people are often referred to us by organisations working towards reducing criminal behaviour.

Participants: Our Participants are people who have lived experience of the Criminal Justice System: this means they may have previously served time in prison, have a criminal conviction or are individuals ‘at risk of offending’.