Businesses in the North should offer jobs to ex-offenders to tackle the 鈥渞evolving door of prison and criminality鈥, a crime chief has said said.
Speaking at the Great Northern Conference in Sheffield, Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner Kim McGuinness said that business and political leaders in the North must 鈥渁ll play our part鈥 to break the cycle of young people being mired in the criminal justice system.
The Labour politician said there was a need for 鈥渏obs for young adults at risk of getting into trouble, jobs for prison leavers [and] jobs for young people who don鈥檛 think anyone will invest in them鈥.
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She added: 鈥淪ome of that needs Government investment, but some of that needs people in the North willing to take a chance. There are some fantastic examples, big and large, of companies who know they need to give something back, who know they have a stake in our shared future.鈥
Ms McGuinness cited hospitality group Greene King, which she said were putting 鈥渟ocial value at their core of their work鈥 in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and currently have 74 members of staff who are ex-offenders and have been supported into work.
She added: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 new jobs, in pubs, in hospitality roles. People getting real, paid work they might never have had.鈥
Ms McGuinness added that Greene King have now resumed work in prisons to deliver employment sessions and that Britishvolt, the electric vehicle battery manufacturer coming to Blyth, is working with Recruitment Junction to help ex-offenders into the new jobs coming to our region.
The crime tsar said: 鈥淭hat means young people who might think they have no option but to return to crime being hired to help build the very factory that might give them another job one day.
鈥淭hese are just some of the great things happening in our North that will change the lives of people, that will level up opportunity even if the Government doesn鈥檛 listen to us.鈥
She told the audience of business and political leaders: 鈥淔or me, we won鈥檛 be a safer, more prosperous north until we鈥檝e brought opportunity to even the most deprived parts of our region.
鈥淪o, my message to Government - invest in our young people. My message to the North 鈥 beat them to it.鈥
