Why Prison Reform Is Not ‘soft on crime’

 

Redemption Roasters: Giving People a Second Chance

Redemption Roasters helps people who have left prison build new skills and find employment opportunities. Through specialist training, participants learn how to become professional baristas, for a fresh start.

The company also roasts its own coffee blends and runs coffee shops across London, giving customers the chance to enjoy a great espresso while supporting a social purpose.

Redemption Roasters’ work extends beyond the UK. The company supports coffee farmers in Colombia through projects that help people move away from involvement in the illegal drugs industry.

Caffeine and pregnancy

The NHS advises limiting caffeine during pregnancy and while breastfeeding. Tea, coffee, cola and energy drinks all contain caffeine. If you choose to drink caffeine, only one cup of either each day, know that many café coffees contain more caffeine than instant coffee. Or none to be safe. 

Disposal of Coffee Grounds

Avoid washing used coffee grounds down the sink, as they can contribute to blocked drains. A sink strainer, such as a SinkShield, can help catch any stray grounds before they enter the plumbing.

Although coffee grounds are often promoted as compostable, they should be binned or placed in food waste bins. Due to caffeine that could harm compost creatures (same with tea leaves).

The same for acidic food scraps (peppers, citrus, rhubarb, tomato and allium scraps – onions, garlic, leeks, shallots and chives).

More Coffee Brands Making a Difference

Many brands prove that coffee can support positive change:

Change Please Coffee

Change Please uses profits from coffee sales to help people experiencing homelessness. The company provides barista training, support into living-wage employment, and guidance around housing and other life challenges.

Their coffee is available as whole beans or ground coffee, including larger 1kg bags that are suitable for workplaces, cafés, pubs, hotels, and restaurants.

Send Coffee

Send Coffee supports London residents with learning difficulties and special educational needs through a 48-week barista training programme.

The course helps participants develop workplace skills while also covering areas such as financial literacy and self-care. Customers can choose coffee sourced from countries including Brazil, Uganda, and Ethiopia.

Kickstart Coffee

Kickstart Coffee uses its profits to support coffee-growing communities in Uganda. The company helps fund coffee tree planting projects as well as educational support for children and teachers.

Manumit Coffee

Manumit Coffee focuses on tackling modern slavery. Its coffee is produced through a co-operative involving people who have experienced slavery, while profits are reinvested into projects working to prevent exploitation.

A Cup That Creates Change

Choosing a coffee brand can be about more than flavour and convenience. Some companies are using coffee as a way to provide training, create jobs, protect farmers, and support communities.

Whether it is helping someone rebuild their life after prison, supporting people experiencing homelessness, or creating opportunities for farmers, these brands show that a simple cup of coffee can have a meaningful impact.

It’s difficult to package coffee, as it needs some kind of seal to keep fresh. But this company for a start focuses on roasted beans, that you can buy and roast yourself. And with a mission to donate millions to animal charities, this brand deserves support!

The good news is that most supermarket bag bins now accept soft packaging like coffee bags, so save them up and drop them off, next time you’re passing!

Tap social beers (help give prisoners jobs)

It’s not very politically correct these days to talk about prison reform, and of course justice must be seen to be served, both as a deterrent and to bring some kind of closure to victims of crime.

Most prisoners get £76 for their journey home (which can sometimes be a tent), with 50% of prisoners reoffending within a year. This costs taxpayers around £6 billion a year.

So it’s really important to look at why prisoners reoffend, to change things for the better and create safer communities.

Tap Social Beer (Oxford) sells vegan draught and canned beers (in cardboard packs), employing recently-released prisoners (or those on day release). The beers are sold at four local community spaces, in shops or online.

Before recycling cans, rinse then pop ring-pulls over holes. Then step on cans to ‘pinch’ inner rims together, to avoid wildlife getting trapped. 

The Glasshouse (Kent) trains female prisoners in horticulture, the houseplants sold online to provide trained jobs and income.

Many indoor plants (including lilies and sago palm) are unsafe near pets  (even brushing a tail past can harm). Avoid facing indoor plants to outdoor gardens, to stop birds flying into windows.

Does restorative justice work?

Restorative justice is when the victim and criminal (not necessarily of the same crime) meet up with a trained professional, to discuss the impact that crimes have had on victims. This stemmed from a Hawaiian practice, where everyone had to get along, due to the small population.

Studies show that this is a pretty effective way to help victims feel heard. And most criminals also are deterred (for juveniles, it has an almost 100% success rate). Here’s a case study from the above site:

A boy snatched a handbag from a 99-year old wheelchair-bound woman, left screaming for help. Her son (who was pushing her) found the boy who gave back the bag, and he pleaded guilty in court.

The man met the boy in a Restorative Justice meeting, and learned that he was just 14, and had been coerced by someone else to mug his mother. After their meeting, he shook the boy’s hand (he later wrote an apology to his mother, who felt she had ‘been heard’).

This ending is not ‘politically correct’. But it’s likely that this boy will now never reoffend, less likely if he had just been sent to a juvenile detention centre, to learn more bad habits and mingle with criminals.

Norway uses prison reform ideas like this. And has re-offending rates at below 20%, far lower than  England.

Does the death penalty deter crime?

No, despite around 50% of people in the UK (and around 80% of Reform UK supporters) wanting it returned for heinous crimes (say child murder). It’s understandable, but the proof is that it simply does not deter (most people who commit such crimes are psychopaths or on drugs, or both).

This is proven in the USA. Liberal north-eastern states (with no death penalty) have lower rates of murder. Yet states with the death penalty (like Texas) have much higher murder rates. The killers are not thinking of the consequences, when committing the crime. Prevention is key.

One fact often overlooked by supporters of the death penalty, is that some jurors will find the accused innocent, as they don’t want the responsibility of sentencing someone to death (this could be due to conscience or faith). So it could mean that guilty murders are free to kill again.

When England had the death penalty, most executions were carried out by Albert Pierrepoint (the son of an executioner, he hanged Ruth Ellis). In one miscarriage of justice, he hanged an innocent man with a mental age of 10 (then when the guilty man was found, he hung him too).

Later on in life, he retired to open a bed-and-breakfast? And said ‘All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment, convince me that in what I have done, I have not prevented a single murder’.

The book Death at Midnight is by a former USA executioner, who reminds us that while those who support executions go about their lives afterwards, it’s people like him left having nightmares for the rest of their lives.