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From the Guardian:-
Turning the tide of youth offending
Ex-offender
Charles Young
tells Lynne
Wallis how
he's trying to give young people the
chances that he never had
Someone has to give young people a
chance, says
ex-prisoner and founder of Laces, Charles
Young. Photograph: Martin Godwin for
the Guardian
Charles Young, arriving smartly
dressed at his office in south London's
Blackheath, is
the epitome of respectability. He straightens
the collar on his black leather
coat, under which is a crisp white shirt. Young,
who is fast becoming one of London's
most well-known
ex-offenders, finds it hard to take a
compliment. "Christ, black coat and
white shirt, I look like a screw," he says with
a toothy laugh.
It has been 17
years since
Young’s last stretch inside, six months in a
single cell at Elmley prison
in Kent.
With over 40 convictions for robbery, fraud and
burglary, he clocked up around
15 years behind bars between the ages of 19 and
40. Since his release, and
inspired by a television programme he saw inside
about an ex-con in Glasgow
talking to schoolchildren about jail, Young has
used his experiences of prison
life to steer young people who may
idealist and glamorise the criminal lifestyle
towards a more fulfilling
existence. He conveys the brutality of prison
life through presentations he takes
to youth clubs, schools, colleges and, most
recently, a naval college, during
which an "inmate" sits locked in a mocked-up
cell on a stage while
Young hammers home what prison is really like.
"Inmates" have
included a former drug dealer, a vicar and a
magistrate. Young shouts, uses raw
language and doesn't pull any punches, and by
the time his talk is over, some
of the hardest-looking, most defiant kids look
visibly shaken. Young has been delivering his "prisons
not worth it" message
on a shoestring since 1995. Now his efforts are
starting to bear fruit. Last
year, Young secured £30,000 of Home Office
funding for his Laces (London
Anti-Crime Education Scheme) project. A
community interest company, Laces helps
to educate young people at risk of offending
about the realities of prison, the
consequences of crime.
Analysis conducted for Young by Mango
Communications calculated that
in the 10 years to 2005, the project had made
2,000 presentations to young
people, and deterred 1,290 potential offenders,
thereby saving the public an
estimated £6.2m in criminal damage and the
criminal justice system
approximately £1.2m.
But Young wants to do more. "I still
feel so frustrated," he
says. "There are people out there [in the
criminal justice system] who
have never been to prison and who talk to young
offenders like they understand
them, but they don't. You need to be patient and
understanding, but a lot of
people alienate these youngsters. You need to
show respect to them, give
respect to teach respect, and lots of these kids
don't respect anyone or
anything because they have never had any respect
themselves.
"I saw a kid who resisted a caning
being whipped when I was at
school, and the modern-day equivalent is a
teacher with a face contorted with
anger jabbing a finger right into a kid's face.
That just makes them feel more
hopeless and useless. When I see these kids with
all the attitude, wanting
attention and recognition but not knowing how to
get it legitimately, it's like
seeing myself at that age."
Young grew up in the
London
borough of
Greenwich in a big family
with parents who he feels did not encourage him
enough.
"They never pushed me to achieve," he
recalls. "I was
the second fastest swimmer in the whole of
London,
but they never ever encouraged me,
even though I could have probably been Olympic
standard. My mum always was very
critical. Kids need to be coached and helped to
develop, and that's what I try
to do for the kids I work with. I'm a bit of a
surrogate parent, giving them
the care and support I never had."
Perhaps Young's biggest success story
is a 19-year-old man, Jason, a
former drug dealer who was recently referred to
Laces by a crown court judge in
Woolwich, south-east
London.
Jason has been crime-free ever since, has held a
job down for a year, is in a
steady relationship and has a baby named Lacey
as a tribute to the project that
turned his life around.
Young is incredibly proud of Jason and
admits that when the judge agreed
to revoke the youth offending team order and
entrust Young to mentor Jason and
keep him out of trouble, his eyes filled with
tears. "I knew Laces was
going to be a success and that one day this
would happen, but it was still a
big moment," Young says.
He has since been asked to address a
group of six crown court judges
about his work and a London
probation team recently invited him to work with
a newly released high-profile
lifer who wants to turn away from crime for
good.
So what does Young make of the
government's plans for probation and
prisons? Young says that while he is in favour
of justice secretary Ken
Clarke's prison and sentencing reforms, he does
not believe that shorter
sentences are going to reduce reoffending.
"Recidivism is still high because
most prisoners learn nothing inside and come out
with no qualifications, no
work experience and no realistic goals, so they
end up falling back into the
same old routine in spite of any initial good
intentions. There are no avenues
open to them to live a different life.
"Without parental guidance or a
teacher to spot a talent and egg
them on, what hope have they got? They need to
be shown how to channel their
aggression into something worthwhile. Instead,
we've got kids who will kill
over a postcode, a girl, a look, all because
they want to be noticed. 'Look at
me,' they are saying.
"We have to encourage our young people
to self-motivate, to
believe in themselves, with parents and teachers
working together. Instead,
we've got parents and teachers blaming each
other and teachers speaking to
these kids with attitudes like shit."
Young says much more could be done to
improve the job prospects for
ex-prisoners. "Halving sentences just means
career criminals can commit
heavier crimes knowing he or she will get a more
lenient sentence. It's no
deterrent."
"Prisoners need to be made to go to
work full time like we do,
but there have to be employment opportunities
when they come out. Someone has
to give them a chance."
He would like
criminal justice
agencies such as youth offending teams, police,
probation and the youth justice board, as
well as social services, to work with chambers
of commerce to persuade
community-minded businesspeople to give
ex-offenders a chance.
Young lives, breathes and sleeps
Laces, but he does have a dream for
his future. "I'd like to be filmed swimming an
Olympic length, and then
I'd get a mathematician to calculate my speed,
take my age into account and
work out what it would have been when I was 18
and tell me whether I'd have won
a medal."
Curriculum vitae
Age
57.
Status Divorced
with three grown-up kids.
Lives Greenwich,
south London.
Education
Wood Hill
School,
Charlton, London;
Mayford approved school, Woking, Surrey;
qualified lifeguard and motor mechanic.
Career
1995-present: founder, Laces; 1995-present:
occasional removal man; 1973-1994:
criminal, mainly jacking cars, burglary and
fraud interspersed with part-time
labouring and periods in prison, ranging from
six months to three years. Gained
City & Guilds motor mechanics qualification
in prison; 1971-1973 sales
assistant, Dunn & Co men’s clothes store;
1970-1971: lifeguard at Greenwich
baths.
Public life Member
of the South-east London
Chamber of Commerce.
Interests Swimming,
snooker.
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