Call to fix crowded jails with charity

A YORKSHIRE charity which has helped around 1,000 ex-offenders find long-term employment said it can help tackle severe overcrowding in British prisons.

Tempus Novo has requested £1m of government funding, claiming it would use the money to hire 22 case workers who could collectively help 1,100 former prisoners.

The charity claims it would save the taxpayer around £25m if it stopped half of those people reoffending, as it cost the government an average of £46,696 to keep a prisoner in 2021/22.

Co-founder Val Wawrosz said the charity has helped 1,000 people find work without government funding over the last 10 years but it “needs the funds to take it to the next level, change more lives, help empty prisons and grow the economy”.

Mr Freer said: “The investment we need is very low risk, with massive potential to change lives. Not just the lives of the ex-offenders, who we call graduates, but their families and relatives.

“It’s about breaking the cycle of criminality and giving them a new start – a second chance. It’s been said that poverty is the mother of crime, so if we can help people into long-term employment and a wage in their back pocket, we can reduce re-offending exponentially.”

Mr Wawrosz and Mr Freer, who founded the charity in 2014, met while they were working as prison officers at HMP Leeds.

In September last year, the number of prisoners in the UK reached 87,128. The government expects that figure to rise to 94,400 by March 2025.

There are widespread concerns about severe overcrowding, staff shortages and crumbling Victorianprisons.

In October, Lord Edis, the senior presiding judge in England and Wales, ordered that sentencing of convicted criminals currently on bail should be delayed.