Ethical question - how do you feel about second chance??

I totally agree Gwyllt prison is the punishment and offenders deserve a chance to get on with their lives and put their crime behind them. There are checks in place to ensure that sex offenders are not employed in certain roles or have easy access to children etc and I think we should also give them a chance of restitution. I listened to a radio programme recently about the work that is being done with sex offenders and it was helpful to me hearing their stories. Many sex offenders have been abused themselves as children.

NotSpaghetti

Rocketstop2 whoever had taken them on would have been in contact (at least) with a person who knew the offences - they don't want work/rehab to fail so do try to find something appropriate.

Really unless you were the owner - or someone in control of hiring I don't see why you should even know they were ex-offenders.

Not trying to be rude. Just my opinion.

Hi, No you certainly aren't being rude .I was in charge of hiring but had higher management above me who did not work at my location.Obviously there are some ex crimes we would feel more comfortable with than others. The point I was making was that for example a pepeat cash thief should not work the till, or a fraudster should not be given a job in the accounts office. No problem with people being rehabilitated, but horses for courses and all that !

That should have said 'repeat' cash thief !!

I too have worked with ex offenders, dependent on both their character and level rehabilitation I think most ex offenders do deserve a second or even third chance.

Many criminals in our prison system haven’t committed violent or sexual crimes, though I’ve worked with both, as well as many less serious non violent crimes.

They’ve served their prison sentence, done their penance and deserve a chance to attempt to rebuild their lives.

One of our neighbours went to a prison for accepting bribes for contracts. It was a huge shock to us all.
His wife was a good friend who was a member of our social group.
He obviously was never allowed to do his former type of employment but took on manual jobs, gardening etc when released.
The only real casualty was his son who left University and became something of a loner.
He just fitted back in and nobody treated him any differently to before.
I think the type of crime is very relevant.
Didn’t the founder of Timpsons do a lot of very good rehabilitation by employing ex offenders in his business?

I think it is very difficult to return to a social group, mainly because if the damage done, I knew someone who worked in a small office and was found guilty of stealing from the company's accounts. The people she worked with were absolutely devastated at the betrayal.

I actually worked, as a colleague, with a young mixed race man in his early 20’s.

He was a ex-gang member, from London, and had served a sentence for gun crime (holding it for another gang member).

He looked the typical stereo-typical gang member, with two gold teeth and on first meeting him, he was quite scary.

I was on secondment with a large county council and working alongside family workers and families in the Tory funded prevent/stop child poverty “Troubled Families” project (ironic)

However, as always I digress, this young man had been brought up by a single mum who herself was a victim of more than one domestic abuse event, he was “brought up” in a series of different women refuges and temporary accommodation.

By 8 this young man was a “runner” for a local gang, by 12 he was concealing drugs, often internally, by 16 he’d fathered a son and by 18 he was in prison.

Prison was his salvation, he found peace with a prison chaplain and came out of prison a very changed person.

After I left the project I stayed in touch with him and still follow him on Facebook.

He met a lovely lady, he married her and together they started an organisation, Reach Every Generation, who work with schools, colleges, parents and vulnerable girls and boys to show them by personal experience how not to get involved with gangs. They also work with those in gangs, and those ex-gang members.

He and his wife have three lovely children of their own and he sees his first child, now an adult, very regularly.

This is what giving someone a second chance can achieve.

If you’re interested in looking what he’s achieved, follow Reach Every Generation on Facebook and Instagram, or here

reacheverygeneration.co.uk/

I’m proud to have worked with and learned from him.

Depends on the crime I suppose. No blanket rules for all. All crimes are not equal.

If you care for children, you can make a Sarah’s Law application, formally known as the Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme and it's a process in England and Wales that empowers parents, carers, and guardians to formally ask the police to check if an individual who has contact with a child has a record for child sexual offences.

For me, personally, I'd give any offender a 2nd chance except if they had been convicted of any offence against children. There's no coming back from that and I'd shun them totally.

Claire’s Law does a similar thing if you have a new partner and checks for previous domestic abuse.

Were both those laws bought in after lobbying from the victims' familes?

BlessedArt

Depends on the crime I suppose. No blanket rules for all. All crimes are not equal.

Yes, I think it does very much depend on the crime.

Are there crimes for which "serving time" with a view to rehabilitation becomes a meaningless concept, such as the sexual or violent physical abuse of very young children - even babies?

Were both those laws bought in after lobbying from the victims' familes?

Yes MissAdventure; Sarah's Law was introduced in 2000, following the abduction and murder of little Sarah Payne, by convicted paedophile Roy Whiting.
Clare's Law was set up after Clare Wood was murdered and set on fire by George Appleton in 2009.

However if people aren’t given a second chance what does the future hold for then and society ?

In the cases of paedophilia, child sex abuse, child murder and rape, it holds a safer, better future for children and society. As for the perpetrators of those crimes; frankly, they can rot in hell as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve worked with juvenile and adult offenders, some of whom responded positively and went on to live good lives. Yes to second chances, more for some

I’d never trust a sex offender. Sexual attraction to children doesn’t go away. Men who are violent including sexual violence rarely truly rehabilitate. There are always exceptions. I know of one who killed his wife, was not imprisoned and went on to remarry happily and bring up two lovely children

NotSpaghetti

How would you know Gran22boys?

Presumably if (say) Jaxjacky's friend's son was there you wouldn't know?

Wouldn’t know what?

Gran22boys

Everyone can make mistakes and should be given a second chance. But not if the offence was violent.

This... you just wouldn't know.

Cardamom

^Were both those laws bought in after lobbying from the victims' familes?^

Yes MissAdventure; Sarah's Law was introduced in 2000, following the abduction and murder of little Sarah Payne, by convicted paedophile Roy Whiting.
Clare's Law was set up after Clare Wood was murdered and set on fire by George Appleton in 2009.

Thank you.
I would not be around those errrm "people".
Perhaps they can see the error of their ways, be rehabilitated, but I would choose to leave rather than be in their company.

the people they killed dont get a second chance, life should mean life

Isn't that what Timpsons do? 10% of their workforce are ex-cons and the success rate is very good.

Even with sex and/or violence, dependng on the nature and extent of the crime, I might be willing to do so.

How can we expect people who have committed crimes not to reoffend if we do not take them back into society.

Perhaps we should stop to consider that the entire principle behind punishing crimes is to stop them re-occurring and to punish the criminal. Once a person has served his or her sentence, he or she re-enters society and is deemed to have atoned for their offence.

This is the theory, and abiding by this, obviously, if we know the person's history we should try to forget it, and treat them as we treat any others we meet.

I realise that there is a great gap between theory and practise, in that not all who serve a prison sentence have to use a very old-fashioned term "seen the error of their ways".

However, if law-abiding people ostracize those who have been found guilty of an offence and served their term, when they are returned to society, we surely leave them little choice but to continue to be around former criminals, or those still living by crime.

So, to me it seems only fair that we should try to treat people as we find them, We all have acquaintances who never become more than that, and some whom we drop quickly because we do not feel any desire for their company. This must surely apply to those who have a murky past as well as to the blameless.

Personally, I would reserve the right not to try to get to know someone who had abused a child, or committed rape or murder or any other atrocity. But I cannot rule out the possiblity that I, unknown to myself , have been in contact with those who have done these things.

So surely the way forward is to take people at their own evaluation - do any of us tell a casual acquaintance all the details of our past, or indeed or present?

I have never been in conflict with the law, but I do not go around telling people whom I voted for in the last general election, the intimate details of my life. or that I am a regular church-goer. This being so, I can hardly expect a new member of say a book club to announce that he has just been released from Barlinnie!

AuntieE, thank you - what you have written is very much how I feel.
If people who have committed serious crimes come out of prison and return to the same area in which they were originally - and then try to join social groups - someone is likely to recognise them.

I think many of such offenders do move well away from their original areas, and - obviously - it is therefore highly unlikely that someone will know who they are or the crime they committed.

Perhaps it 'arrogance' of someone, who comes out prison, having served their sentence (which many consider was too short), and then within the matter of months try to join local groups, that really can offend people

In the age of social media, it is now far harder for offenders to move to another area and go unrecognised, I would say - especially when it comes to crimes such as rape or child abuse. There are groups which focus on exposing these people.

If we don't give all ex-prisoners a chance to rehabilitate themselves, with help, then we need the Isle of Wight to become a penalty colony. We must allow people who have served their sentences a way back to communities.

People need to be given a chance to build back up their life after a prison sentence. After all they’ve done their time. You have no idea of everyone you meets past so they shouldn’t be judged on past misdemeanours.