Sycamore Tree - its a 'no brainer'

We finally have the figures detailing our Sycamore Tree provision for the last financial year:

Courses                  114 (our third best year!)

Prisons                   36

Learners                2,164 (highest ever number!)

Completed            1,988    92%

Passes                    1,948    98% (highest ever pass rate!)

of those 1,948 passes, 186 achieved level 1 (9.5%) and 1,762 achieved level 2 (90.5%)

At least 49 different surrogate victims shared their story. At least 253 group facilitators helped 45 tutors to deliver the courses. That is around 350 volunteers actively involved, inside prison walls, delivering a programme which not only makes offenders look at themselves and their victims in a way they probably never have, but also offers a different taste of justice to the one we are all used to.

This is a fantastic set of results and is testament to the hard work and commitment of all those ST Tutors, Group Facilitators and Surrogate Victims, not to mention the many supporters and Prayer Group members who have continually held Sycamore Tree in their prayers, and prison staff  - the support of whom is utterly invaluable.

Since the First Sycamore Tree course at HMP The Mount in 1998 our historical results are as follows:

Courses                 1,043

Learners                16,348

Completed            15,415 (94.2%)

Passes                    10,116 (93.3%) (since accreditation in 2004-05)

What an achievement! 1,043 Sycamore Tree courses and over 16 thousand learners!

With the evidence we have (and have had for 6 years) to prove the changes in attitudes in offenders who take Sycamore Tree, alongside the widely reported figures on the impact of Restorative Justice on the scandalous reoffending rates we have in this country, I just can’t believe the government aren’t falling over themselves to get Sycamore Tree into every prison in the land.

For £40,000 a year you can pay for one prisoner to be a prisoner, and you’ll give yourself less than a 1 in 3 chance of not paying for him to be a prisoner again within two years of his release. Alternatively you can pay for his initial imprisonment plus £3,600 for him and 19 of his co-residents to take a course that will halve their chances of returning (based on generic RJ figures), thus saving potentially tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds.

Our trans-Atlantic cousins have a phrase that has crept into our colloquial terminology. A phrase that I feel would be apt at this point; this is “A NO BRAINER.”

We are very pleased with the results I have detailed above and we very much look forward to the time when our leaders will give us the opportunity to change the hearts and minds of offenders in every prison in the land.

Taking responsibility

Isn’t it funny, if you are an international sports star and you muck around with some model, you’re bound to get caught out. There are hordes of people who delight in informing the public of the misdemeanors of the rich and famous in the “public interest”.  And it seems that there are even larger hordes of loyal followers eager to gleefully, gobble up any and all such information (although I have often wondered if the journalists ‘reporting’ on this stuff are feeding a need or creating it).

Anyway it seems that whilst these ravenous, celebrity devourers exist, there’ll be little getting away with anything if your profile is a public one. So I can understand the idea of getting a court order to stop people feeding on the carcass of your reputation BUT, it has become apparent that such a move could have the opposite effect.

Many of us care little about footballers or models and even less about footballers and models having affairs and as such, will not normally condone the media outlets that spew this stuff out. The recent Super Injunction scandal has served to elevate these stories into a higher realm of readership and Mr Footballer’s behaviour is far better known than if he’d let the ‘story’ rise and fall in the normal way.

What have we to learn from this? You might say nothing. You might say that if you don’t want to face the hardships that come from being caught, you shouldn’t do whatever you were caught doing. I think the message here is about taking responsibility. What Mr Footballer tried to do is hide what he had done, which of course made it worse when he was found out.

Have you ever been hurt? Have you ever found something out weeks, even years later? Didn’t it seem worse that the person you care about not only did what they did, but lied for so long as well? It’s like two wounds for the price of one.

If the perpetrator of your hurt was honest at the outset, doesn’t this reduce the wound ever so slightly? Still a wound, but only one.

Taking responsibility is a big part of the restorative justice process. Learners on the Sycamore Tree course must recognise that they are at fault, that they have caused harm, broken the law etc. Often this is the difficult. Many crimes don’t appear to have direct victims, many are acts of retaliation and revenge and therefore almost justifiable in the eyes of the perpetrator.

I have said before and will never tire of repeating, that arrest, court, sentencing and prison do not achieve this recognition in the minds of offenders. They often do not promote a sense of introspection but of resentment. The processes of criminal justice between arrest and release desperately needs to contain an underlying element of taking responsibility, learning the impact of your actions and understanding what your victims have felt.

Week after week we witness Sycamore Tree learners experience their very own ‘eureka’ moments. Realisations that their actions have caused certain feelings amongst those affected that the courts do not explain. You just can’t simply lock people up and expect them to be different when you let them out.

Here are some quotes from sycamore Tree learners recently:

‘I have been truly moved by the accounts of the people who are affected by crime. It made me see the other side of the story and most of all, it made me realise that there are no victim-less crimes’ (Oct 2010).

‘I gained a new insight into the impact of my crime on my family and the community at large. I’ve also realised that I can no longer hide behind the excuses and that I must accept full responsibility to be able to move forward in the future’ (Oct 2010).

‘I realise what I’ve done and how much hurt I’ve caused. The ripple effect of my crime and the impact on my family and friends. I really want to say sorry from the real depths of my heart’ (March 2011).

When I was much younger my mother asked me very sternly if I had been eating the raspberries that were growing in the garden. I denied it, naturally. She accused me of lying which upset me and caused me to protest vigorously. My protestations achieved one thing, a wallop round my head. When I was sent to my room, very much aggrieved, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror and noticed the raspberry juice on my chin……

Sycamore Tree works

Well, April was pretty hectic wasn’t it? We’ve had more bank holidays than you can shake a stick at, Easter celebrations, a Royal wedding to make your Nan cry, I’ve been on holiday in East Sussex and enjoyed weather better than the med, a new series of Doctor Who has begun and whilst all this has been going on we’ve begun making preparations for the transfer of the national office from Essex to London.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything for a while. I just didn’t want you thinking I had fallen foul to a super injunction or something. (note: my excuses for not blogging don’t stretch into May). If it’s any consolation, I still have plenty to say, here goes…

Sycamore Tree has challenged me as a man and changed the way I see certain things in life and I feel privileged to be a part of it. It had seemed to hit a small stumbling block recently however, when we discovered that we were going to lose the ability to operate in London prisons. The courses we run in these prisons represent about 12-15% of our programme provision annually. Add to this the issues around prison funding that are very much at the fore currently, and we were staring down the barrel of losing a huge number of courses which would leave us suffering a pretty lean spell as an organisation. We have been providing the Prison Service with 110 courses a year as an average over the last four years, at one point we looked like we might have to settle for around 85 this year.

We are not simply a business however. We are a Christian charity and we operate on a level above P&L finances. We believe that our work as an organisation is anointed and that we are doing God’s work in demonstrating love, forgiveness and a set of ethics and principles that mainstream society often struggles to come to terms with.

It will come as little surprise to those of you that share this faith, that despite all the issues we are facing with providing this programme, we are not losing any numbers of courses. We will still maintain our 110 course average this financial year.

The simple fact of the matter is that Sycamore Tree works. It is one of the most effective forms of intervention available to Her Majesty’s Prison Service. It challenges prisoners in a way much more profound than it has challenged me. It challenges our perception of justice, of crime, of rehabilitation and is achieving wider and wider recognition, which is why Prison Fellowship is this country’s largest provider of Victim Awareness programmes.

One of our Sycamore Tree tutors is currently writing a blog about her experiences tutoring a course, this blog is available on our website and will teach you a little more about Sycamore Tree. Don’t tell anyone, but she’s my favourite tutor!

I was listening to some politicians and other senior figures, talking about sentencing and prison populations last week. The discussion centered around the idea of reducing sentences if a guilty plea was entered early thus saving the victim the heartache of long, drawn out court cases as well as saving the taxpayer millions in court costs and imprisonment costs. This happens already but the conversation was about the possibility of increasing the discount to somewhere like 50%.

This is a hugely emotive subject and I suspect that most people will see things from the eyes of a victim who will doubtless question any reduction of sentence more often than not.

I cannot help thinking that sentence length is pretty immaterial if all we are going to do is lock them up and later release them. Whether that sentence is 6 months, 6 years or 16 years, if all we do is keep offenders out of sight and one day release them, without anything of note occurring in between, what have we really achieved? Perhaps a few days of positive newspaper headlines about clean streets and conviction rates are reason enough, I don’t know.

On another subject, my friend bought me a bottle of HP Guinness sauce and it is delicious. I wonder if we have any rules around product placement…

It's just not cricket

Let me start by apologising that I haven’t posted a blog entry for a couple of weeks. I have been unwell and had some time off (cue sympathy). Due to my unscheduled time off I have been particularly busy since my return (insert more sympathy here). Nevertheless I am here now and I have much to talk to you about, starting with the cricket.

Cricket fans among you will be aware that India played Sri Lanka in the world cup final at the weekend. Non cricket fans, prepare to be educated. The captain of the Indian team is a chap called Mahendra Singh Dhoni, an accomplished batsman and also the team’s wicket keeper. He hadn’t had a very good tournament up to the final. His batting had been indifferent at best and he hadn’t managed a decent score in any of the matches. When the final came around, Sri Lanka batted first and posted a pretty decent total. When India’s turn came to bat, they lost their star openers very quickly and when the third wicket fell India could have been in trouble.

The skipper decided to take responsibility. He put himself up the batting order and came out to bat earlier than he normally would, despite the fact he had been having a poor tournament, despite the fact that another quick wicket would have put Sri Lanka in a commanding position and despite the fact he will have felt the weight of expectation of over a billion, fanatical Indian cricket fans, he stuck his hand up and shouldered the responsibility. He finished the game on 91 not out, India won and Dhoni was carried off the field a national hero.

I am inspired by his actions during the biggest game of his career. Against all the odds, he stood up to be counted and put in a tournament winning performance that has changed the lives of his team mates.

In truth I know hundreds of ‘Mahendra Singh Dhonis’ all around the country. People who face adversity, prejudice and a society that wants to say no, but who stick their hand up and change lives. People who freely give so much of their time to help offenders change, to help families stay in touch and to share some unconditional love with people the rest of society wants to forget about. I have story after story about lives changing because of someone who stuck their hand up and took responsibility some of which I have shared with you.

We all want a better society. We all want a safer society. We all want to see victims healed. We all want to see offenders change, stop offending and do something positive. We all want to see children that don’t go without, families who are supported, indeed, who support each other. Well I have news for you. It’s not going to happen by itself. We owe it to ourselves, to our families and to each other to stick our hands up. If we’re not prepared to stand up in any way, to take any kind of responsibility then I’m afraid we have little right to complain.

Have a think for a moment about all the times you have talked about criminals, prisons, victims, justice and the courts over a coffee or a pint. Consider all the times you have shaken your head and tutted at a newspaper report or a TV documentary. Think about all the criticism you have levelled from your armchair. Now ask yourself if you could be a Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Look at Sycamore Tree and see how Restorative Justice tears up what we thought we knew about justice. Look at Angel Tree and consider how many vulnerable children, unsupported by our society are given a little joy.

If you are not a Prison Fellowship Volunteer but you care at all about Justice, reducing offending behaviour, keeping families together and you recognise how little difference there is between you and a ‘criminal’, become a Prison Fellowship Volunteer right now! If you are a Prison Fellowship Volunteer then go and make a cup of tea because you know all this already.

Whatever you do, do something. I spent a lifetime thinking the same as everyone else, judging, offering opinions about topics I didn’t really understand. In the end, it’s just not cricket.

Change happens

As I type this week’s blog entry I am sitting in our new office in London. As I do I am reminded that things change. Often they change on a timescale not to our liking but they change nevertheless. For example, I had a foot-long sub in front of me just a few minutes ago and now I do not. Change is necessary and it will affect us all. Beyond the changes in the condition of my lunch, I face changes in my working situations as well. Charities the length and breadth of the country are facing increasingly difficult times due to the financial situation, and Prison Fellowship are not exempt from these pressures. This is why we are re-locating our central support office.

We are normally afraid of change and do everything in our power to stop it. It is only with hindsight that we ever appreciate it. Just 13 years ago Prison Fellowship were nervously tip toeing into our first ever Sycamore Tree programme. 15 prisoners (probably as nervous as we were) took that programme and it took us a year or two to find our feet. Since then the programme has changed both in structure and in availability. Now we expect over 100 courses each year. By the end of this financial year we will have run almost 1,050 programmes and taught around 16,500 prisoners. We even have a strategic plan to develop our provision to 200 and then 400 programmes a year.

It is a similar story with Angel Tree. 1994 saw our first attempt at this programme in just one prison, with 40 children receiving a Christmas present. Now we run in 76 prisons and almost 4,500 children received a Christmas present this year. In addition to this we now operate Angel Tree in two new ways, family fun days and Mother’s Day. Our strategic vision is to reach 20,000 children and to have Angel Tree, in one form or another, available in every prison in the land. I wonder what the volunteers buying those first 40 presents will have thought about that.

The plans we have for the future will require much change and even more courage, but we mustn’t forget who we serve. The prison scene has changed as well. The number of prisoners in this country has grown and grown, as a result the need to support their families has also grown. The only thing that doesn’t appear to have changed is our broad, societal approach to justice. We are still totally pre-occupied with those three eternal principles of justice: what law has been broken, who did it and how are we going to make them pay?

When oh when will this change?

As the country’s largest provider of Restorative Justice programmes, Prison Fellowship is pretty well placed to query whether this approach is at all sustainable. I have written before and I will write again, that the best way I know to reduce the ridiculous reoffending rates we have in this country, is to take up a Restorative Justice approach. Forget about retribution and think about restoration. Let’s think about: Who’s been hurt, what are their needs and who’s responsibility are they?

I’m not a nuclear physicist, or a member of MENSA. I was not a child prodigy and I don’t consider myself a genius. I am capable of some fairly rational thought however, and it is my humble observation that prison ‘aint working’. Perhaps Carol Vorderman might be able to explain how the reoffending rate increases the more people we put inside. Two and two makes four however much you claim to the contrary. Change is what is required. How many more years must we continue trying to force a square peg into a round hole?

We have heard much about a rehabilitation revolution, perhaps it is finally coming, though I shan’t hold my breath. It is currently possible to spend 20 or 30 years dipping in and out of prison and yet never truly understand the impact of your crimes. Until this changes, I’m afraid the results of imprisonment won’t either and as a result, you will have to listen to people like me complaining for a while yet.

Prison Fellowship will continue to facilitate change in the lives of offenders, families and victims, I will continue to embrace the changes to the way we do so and I will also continue to pray for the day we see real change in the way justice is provided in this country.

Incidentally I am not too unhappy about the change in my sub, it looked nice on my desk but it’s much better where it is.

Freedom and Fortune

Last week I talked a little about a TV programme I had watched. Actually I talked quite a lot about it. This week I am going to do the same because I saw a couple of things on TV that have given me a perspective re-boot. I’m not talking about England’s cricket world cup loss to Ireland, nor am I talking about the league cup final between Arsenal and Birmingham. Those of you following this blog will know why.

What I am talking about is a group of celebrities living in the slums of Kibera, Kenya. This is the largest slum in Africa measuring around 1.5 miles squared and home to a million people. The locals survive in conditions you and I can only imagine, in mud huts with open sewers outside, where 1 in 5 children will die before they reach 5 years of age and latrines are shared by up to 1,000 people. I’m not ashamed to tell you that I was in tears for much of this programme. It’s not a story of hope or of humanity. Things won’t really get better there it seems.

What this programme did for me is to reaffirm just how fortunate I am to be in the position I am in. Compared to the Kiberan people, I have never had a problem in my life. You can argue that life problems are relative and there will be an amount of credit in that, but my worries and concerns do not involve sharing a 12 foot mud hut, located at the foot of a mountain of refuse, with 8 family members mostly dying of some disease or another.

It also made me think about how fortunate we are in our culture in so far as the ability we have to help people in our own towns and cities. Given the nature of the issues people all over the world have to overcome, it is a nonsense that we should have homelessness, child poverty and social injustice at all in a country as rich as we are. I know that I sound idealistic and am probably dreaming but I really do believe that we have the power to change these situations. All we need is enough people who care. I don’t mean people who consider these things and feel some vague notion that something should be done. I mean people who recognise their responsibilities in their own communities to influence the lives of the people around them, and who possess enough get-up-and-go to act.

People like this make Prison Fellowship what it is. In 30 years of operations we have built a base of almost 1,400 committed volunteers who have influenced the lives of countless individuals. Since Sycamore Tree has been running our volunteer teams have taught over 15,000 prisoners and we know what impact we have had on their attitudes. So far as our records go back I can tell you that Angel Tree volunteers and supporters have sent over 30,000 Christmas presents to the children of offenders and we know what impact this has on family relations.

As we race toward the financial year end, we will have run 118 Sycamore Tree programmes which will have benefitted well over 2,000 prisoners once again. We managed to send 4,500 Christmas gifts with Angel Tree which represents our biggest year ever.

I have spent years in retail hospitality management and whilst it was fun and it gave me a massive collection of skills and experiences, it is simply not comparable to working for an organisation that actually makes a difference in people’s lives. I don’t know how many people I have told how proud it makes me to be doing what I do. I don’t know if you can tell!

I am also proud that I can openly talk about the fact that I do what I do in the name of God and for my faith in him. So many people who feel a spiritual duty to help are told they cannot talk openly about their faith. We have seen some high profile cases recently that prove my point, and I am glad that I can take advantage of my freedom, for the time being at least.

While I am enjoying this freedom I am also going to continue enjoying the lime torte my wife made for me for my birthday this weekend…

The Lockup

I don’t really like my telly. The volume buttons on the TV itself don’t work which is ok because the remote works fine, but there’s never anything on. There aren’t any fishing programmes around at the moment and it’s even difficult to watch the mighty Arsenal defeat Barcelona because during the build-up, half time and the post match analysis I am told I need to buy a car, or a new razor, or some life enriching, soul satisfying, character enhancing, caffeine infused eye roll-on for men that will apparently transform me into a chisel-jawed, bestubbled, hunk of a man who is the envy of my peers and the thing of desire for leggy women the world over.  Maybe I have misread that advert!

I did watch a programme the other day called ‘the lockup’ on BBC3 and it really made me think. The programme is a documentary shot in a Humberside custody suite and charts the exploits of the visitors and staff. I didn’t catch the whole programme but the part I did see documented two stories in parallel. On the one hand we had an 11 year old boy who had been arrested (I’m not sure what for) and was in custody for the better part of two days. The custody sergeant had been unable to contact his father to collect him. On the other hand we had an 18 year old man who had been arrested fleeing from a burglary with two of his mates. The burglary was of an elderly woman and was caught on a street CCTV camera. To make matters worse, one of the three men used to walk the elderly woman’s dog so they knew her.

The staff had an amount of sympathy for the 11 year old and talked a lot about doing what they could to ensure he didn’t get a criminal record and I as a viewer shared this empathy for the lad. The same cannot be said for the 18 year old man who had no sympathy from either the staff or from me. One of the officers told the camera that he didn’t like burglars at the best of times but he especially disliked those who burgled the elderly. A sentiment most of us would share.

It occurred to me right then as I was feeling two conflicting emotions at once: sympathy for the 11 year old and anger and resentment for the 18 year old, that for all intents and purposes, these two lads were one in the same person. If the 11 year old lad is not handled properly and if social services, the courts, the family and the community don’t handle their part in the next few years of his life effectively, he might just turn up as an 18 year old burglar and we will duly despise him.

Where is the line in our lives where we stop being products of our upbringing and surroundings and become truly responsible?  And if our upbringing has been such that crime is felt to be an acceptable way of life, does that line even exist? These are questions I for one cannot answer and I would be surprised if anyone could do more than merely speculate. They are questions that help form the basis for my involvement in prison work.

My greatest hope is that some day there will be enough people who care about influencing peoples circumstances as to actually make a real difference on a large scale in our society. Until then Prison Fellowship will continue to influence small changes in individual lives. Here are some of the reasons I love what I do:

Writing about our Angel Tree programme, a Prisoner from HMP Wormwood Scrubs says;  

“Dear Angel Tree, I want to thank you for the presents sent on my behalf to my children this Christmas. It is a time of year I am struggling to cope with without being with my family and I must admit that it hurts a great deal. I want you to know that I really appreciate what you have done for my family and especially for me. I love my children very very much and this will be the first Christmas I have been apart from them.”

Talking about Sycamore Tree, a prisoner from HMP Bronzefield writes;

“It has made me think about how I made life unbearable for the victims. In future there’ll be no more committing of crime, I intend to have a bright future.”

You do realise that I am still itching to tell you all about my carp fishing exploits. If I can figure out how to get photos onto this blog you’ll be in for a real treat...