Tag: rehabilitation

Pausing to reflect on how far I’ve come

Author: | 17 Dec 2021

For many this is a time of year to take stock, looking back on the year behind us. 2021 has, perhaps, invited more reflection than ever. 

As a charity promoting second chances for people in and after prison, we too have reflected that supporting Longford scholars into career opportunities is something we have a part to play in. For almost a year, a pilot employability programme has been running alongside our scholarship programme. 

Molly took on a new role through the employability pilot. Here, for Longford Blog she reflects on what she’s learnt….

The circumstances that led me to spend a year in prison are undoubtedly the worst thing to have happened to me and my family. With my mind and body in survival mode, I don’t have clear memories of my time inside. However, in my last days there, I remember vividly one of my closest friends saying, ‘Molly, when you leave don’t look back.’ She wasn’t being metaphoric, she was deadly serious. ‘Walk out of the gates and do not turn around.’

I followed her instructions to the T. I was released in the April and, with Longford’s support, hurried straight to Cardiff Metropolitan University in the September. I joined the equestrian team and swiftly took over as president, I worked as a student ambassador, became a student representative, completed 100 hours of work experience as part of the Cardiff Met Award, coached gymnastics, athletics, rugby and cricket, and started the CoppaFeel!: Uni Boob Team society… The aim was to place as much distance between myself and HMP Eastwood Park as possible with the hope of making my CV look good despite my conviction.

Focusing on proving myself outside of academic study by cramming distracting activities into my schedule was overwhelming. Balancing these commitments, alongside the mental health issues and trauma of being fresh out of prison led me to overlook my degree. Nevertheless, I managed to scrape a 2:1 in 2019!

Back on track

After graduating, I found a good job with good people who didn’t care about my past. Over the next couple years, I made Cardiff my home and settled into a comfortable position. More recently, I started my own freelance venture. Life is back on track. Except this summer, two years post-graduation, having worked tirelessly to put distance between my new life and my experiences, I found myself carrying around an unbearable guilt. Guilt for succeeding and leaving the people in prison behind.

If I wanted to make the feeling go away, I had to do something about it. I got back in touch with Longford in October and explained the situation….

‘I want to give back.’

When they offered to put me in touch with StandOut, who happened to be recruiting, ultimately I knew, despite the fear, that I couldn’t turn this opportunity down. Luckily, the role suited me perfectly; working part time meant I can confidently develop my freelance social media management services with the comfort of a stable income. Not to mention, resolving my desire to give back.

It all happened so quickly, I’m still confused by it. I spent the best part of 6 years trying to move on from prison and now I’m working in an organisation that challenges me to confront a lot of underlying emotions and internalised stigma about prisons every day. Whilst inside, I was aware of a handful of organisations who visited people in prison, but I never understood how dedicated such organisations are to supporting people to create a better life upon release. Whilst it’s frustrating that the current system requires organisations like StandOut to exist in the first place, it’s fascinating to learn more about the sector as a whole.

Now here I am, just over a month into my role at StandOut, feeling so grateful for the opportunity to work with a first class and committed team who work together to put people first. With their support, day- to- day I plan communications and support fundraising. Feedback from my new colleagues has assured me that I’m doing a good job! As a team, we have just completed a massive campaign for The Big Give Christmas Challenge where we smashed our initial target by 50% and raised over £90,000.

How far I’ve come

Whilst building my way up towards a wonderful job, growing a freelance venture, new home and beautiful family, not stopping to look back felt right. However, now knowing that I want to and can give back, a period of reflection is necessary. Although it’s not always easy, pausing to look back has allowed me to see how far I’ve come.

If you want to apply to become a Longford scholar to study a university degree in prison or after prison, you can apply here. 

Scholarship Application

“You Alright, Mate?” 

Author: | 10 Sep 2021

Introducing Chris. Chris is a new Class of 2021 Longford scholar who starts university this Autumn.

Here he explores the unwritten rules of prison, and post-prison, encounters….

When we used to pass each other in prison, whether inside or out, in browbeating heat and in rain that wriggles up your sleeves, you would say, “You alright, mate?” And I wondered if you really meant it. Were you just saying, “I acknowledge your existence,” which is, I suppose, still meritable in its own way, or did you really, genuinely care?

If I had said, “No, I’m not alright,” (which I often was not), would you have frozen mid-step, concerned and aghast at my change of answer? Would you have invited me over for tea and sat me down for a chat? Would you have listened to me worry about where I was going to live or fret about getting into University? What if I admitted I’d missed my brother’s wedding and that my partner was leaving me? Would you have told me it would be alright? Hugged me? Got me put me on an ACCT**?

If the answer to all of these is “No”, then I would rather you hadn’t acknowledged me at all.

Twice in one week when someone asked the question I said “Yes, I’m alright,” and they replied “Yeah, I’m good thanks,” which really underlined to me how meaningless the whole interaction was.

Some people didn’t say anything to me when we passed; not even a, “You alright, mate?” and I’m not sure if I resent them or admire their courage for breaking the mould. Other people didn’t used to say it but then they started to – like the guy I helped get a new mattress, or the man whose Comp 1** I wrote. Which led me to believe there might just have been some sentiment buried within it.

I often thought after our exchange about how many we might have left in us before one of us was released.

Neither of us knew we were saying goodbye by saying “You alright, mate?” but one day I doubt either of us remember, we did- and you were gone like yesterday’s bread.

I thought our performance well-rehearsed. But when I see you in Epping Forest we silently, mutually, telepathically decide to improvise. You are taller, your hair less wavy, and missing the roll-up that lived behind your ear but it is you. Our eyes lock and our hands come together as if that is how we always greet each other and this time I say it, “You alright, mate?”

I’m acutely aware of those around me. My brother and his wife, her sisters and brother, her sister’s boyfriend, his wife and their four kids – I’d never met most of them until today. I wonder if you and I will bravely attempt a longer conversation; if I can introduce you to them and say, “This is a man I have never told you about but here he is. The extent of our relationship is that we used to ask each other if we were alright up to three times a day without ever meaning it for more than a year.”

You say, “Where do I know you from?”

It strikes me as an odd question when we are already shaking hands.

“You were in Ford,” I reply, pointedly leaving out the ‘HMP’ in case your companion isn’t aware.

“Yes,” you say, “What’s your name?”

“Chris,” I say. “My name is Chris.”

We freeze there, like two dancers unsure of who is supposed to lead. My tongue caresses my bottom lip as I begin to form a word. I want to tell you about all that has changed: that I have a job, a girlfriend, somewhere to live, a scholarship to University; that it all has turned out better than I could have hoped – but I think how pompous I’ll sound and the words die with a breath on my lips.

“Who’s this?” My niece says, cutting through the tension in the way that only a child can.

“My…friend,” I say, hoping you won’t object.

“And these are your…?” you say.

“My family. This is my family.”

And that feels strange yet correct for me to say, like a stiff new shoe that fits just right.

I feel the moment slipping away and move to end it.

“Alright,” I say, “Good to see you. You take care.”

“Alright,” you say.

And we’re away: two boats shunted off the docks; two birds taking wing; two prisoners, free.

—————-

** Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork, or ACCT, is the official term for suicide watch

** Prison complaint form

 

Chris is studying a law degree with a Patrick Pakenham Award.

 

 

 

We need more lived experience leaders in the justice system…like you!

Author: | 21 May 2021

CJ Burge has recently been appointed a new Trustee of the Longford Trust, alongside another former scholar. Here the First class degree graduate reflects on her journey from prison to boardroom, offering hope and advice to other upcoming leaders who have personal experience of prison.

 

 

I was bowled over when I got the call from the Longford Trust’s Chair to say that they would be delighted to have me as a Trustee on their Board. I was thinking “I’m the one who’s delighted, humbled, elated….!”

You see, even now, years on from my release from prison, I still suffer from impostor syndrome. Impostor syndrome is the feeling that I shouldn’t be where I am, doing the things I’m doing: sitting amongst these professionals; leading this partnership meeting; speaking on a podium to a national conference of experts; being asked for my perspective by senior government officials, and the list goes on….Impostor syndrome in this context is institutionalisation’s best friend, waiting to confront you as you leave the prison gates, hiding in your shadow as you stride forward into your new life. Although it has never quite gone away, I’ve learnt to live with it, and I’ve found that over the years, the more I’ve challenged myself to do new things, and be in new settings (that quite frankly have filled me with trepidation), the more I’ve conquered and silenced my unwelcome friend from prison.

If you’d have asked me 7 years ago, when I started my degree in prison, whether I’d be where I am today – Trustee of two remarkable charities, and a National Service Manager at another – I’d have smiled at you in incredulity and utter disbelief.

Incarceration and the prison system are far from the vessels of hope and transformation they really should be in a progressive 21st century society like ours.

Reflecting on what has got me here and how it has been possible, I’ve boiled it down to a combination of actions, mindsets and opportunities that have accelerated my path to being in leadership positions, just four years out of prison.

 

Actions

The one thing I knew for sure in prison was that I needed to re-educate myself. If I was going to go anywhere or do anything of significance, I needed to use the thousands of hours at my disposal to better myself as a human being, so that one day I could effectively give back to the community I would be re-entering. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship through the Longford Trust to study Law, and with that came an amazing mentor who encouraged, inspired and challenged me, in equal measures. At the end of my degree, the opportunity to do a placement at the Cabinet Office arose, again through the Trust, and this short immersion in all things government and policy lifted the lid on what I thought was possible. It enabled me to dream the dream, that people like us could one day be in positions like those, not just as some summer intern, or token achiever, but for the knowledge, skills and much-needed lived experiences that we bring of the criminal justice services and social systems that see people at their lowest, most vulnerable state, and in much need of help.

 

Mindsets

The number one mantra for me has been to embrace challenge positively. I’ve known all along my journey, from 9 months’ solitary confinement in a Japanese prison, to having my daughter taken away from me at birth, to speaking in front of hundreds at a Longford Lecture or even delivering the first TEDx talk in a prison in the UK, that this would be hard, well more than hard, potentially soul-destroying if I allowed it to be. Very early on I had to come to terms with my actions that had led me to where I was and the hurt that I had caused others. I made a decision that this wasn’t the end, that no matter what, I could turn it around and, though now through a more colourful path, still fulfil my life’s ambitions to help others. Notice I said embrace challenge positively? Well positivity and gratitude are the two other mindsets that have smoothed the rocky landscapes that I have traversed. Without these I would have probably been bailing out of every challenge that came my way, but it was the positive thinking and the gratitude that kept me both buoyant and grounded, at the same time.

Opportunities

The very definition of opportunity, a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something, may have you believe that you need to wait for those sets of circumstances to arise before you can even get a whiff of an opportunity. I see it a bit differently though, that we can engender the right circumstances by preparing and getting ourselves in a position to have opportunities line up at our door.

In my case it started with volunteering I undertook a qualification in prison delivered by St Giles in Information, Advice & Guidance, and became one of their Peer Advisors, supporting women in prison with resettlement issues. A bit later I volunteered whilst on day release (or ‘RoTL’ as it’s known) in the community in the St Giles’ Peer Advisor Contact Centre. I also secured a volunteer placement at the Southwark Law Centre.

Volunteering gave me the skills and knowledge to apply more confidently for jobs, and fortunately I secured a paid role coordinating for the award-winning educational and preventative SOS+ Service at St Giles. I can’t tell you how overwhelmed I was when I landed the job, it reduced me to tears knowing that someone out there valued me enough to pay for my contributions. Volunteering gave me a steady foundation, a base to jump off from, but that first job, being paid for the hard work I was putting in, that cemented and deep-rooted a new sense of self-worth, identity and value.

I am passionate about rehabilitation and second chances, which is why everything that the Longford Trust does resonates with me. For the last five years I have given my absolute all to developing a service that champions the potential of people with lived experiences of the criminal justice system, by providing opportunities to learn and develop skills that lead to sustainable career prospects. I am a staunch advocate for meaningful opportunities for people who leave prison, having seen first-hand the multitude of barriers for those with convictions, and the incredibly difficult circumstances many who find themselves in prison have faced. As a Trustee of the Criminal Justice Alliance (‘CJA’), I chair their Lived Experience Expert Group that meets quarterly to bring together CJA members to provide advice, support and expertise to our work on lived experience and improving the diversity of the criminal justice workforce to include, at all levels, those with lived experiences.

We need more employers and organisations in the justice sector to recognise, value, include and recruit into leadership and influencing roles people with lived experiences of the criminal justice system,

if we are “to (re)build a system that learns from those with crucial insights into the challenges that undermine the system’s key objectives” (Change from Within, CJA report 2019). Moreover, the benefits of having lived experience on non-profit boards are numerous: from “improving the quality of evidence based decision making”, to providing “credibility, legitimacy, efficiency, effectiveness,… authentic representation and a better understanding” to the issues in need of tackling, as academics from Cass Business School have found.

I am really glad to see incremental positive changes taking place across our sector with trailblazing charities, like the Longford Trust, leading the way by walking the talk and valuing lived experience. I end this blog echoing the Change from Within report’s call to action to the whole criminal justice sector, including public and private sector agencies, to recognise, celebrate and invest in people with lived experience. Whilst also encouraging all my peers to continue to welcome challenge positively, to believe in the value of and to harness their lived experiences, and always, always to aim high!

 

 

 

 

Sometimes success is not where you are now

Author: | 11 Mar 2021

Every so often we receive an email which makes us stop and really think about what we do and how to measure success. Recently Hallam, an ex-scholar from 2012, got in touch out of the blue. As far as we were concerned, he’d dropped out of university and then dropped out of view. As far as the statistics go, not a success.

But maybe we should re-think how and when to measure success. Hallam explains in his own words for Longford Blog:

I was about 13-years-old when I started offending.

At 15 I was arrested as part of a police gangs operation and by 17 I was sat in a young offenders’ institute facing significant time.

I celebrated my 18th birthday in jail; I began my ‘adult life’ on 23-hour bang up on D wing of HMYOI Brinsford in Wolverhampton, eating Jamaican ginger cake as my birthday cake.

After I was released, my family moved abroad and, because of my convictions, I wasn’t allowed to move with them.

I was 19-years-old, no family, no job and no prospects for the future other than crime.

I felt like a failure.

About a year later, I decided I wanted to do something with my life and felt joining the Royal Marines was my way out. I will never forget the moment the armed forces career officer looked at my criminal record, and laughed in my face. ‘You will never, ever join the Royal Marines, it’s not for people like you, get out of my office.’

I felt ashamed, embarrassed and angry. I felt a failure.

A path to education….

However, I stuck with my determination to do ‘something’ with my life; I would return to education.

Looking back at education, my school life was a mess. Although I actually managed to leave with 5 GCSEs (don’t ask me how, because I didn’t do any work!), I was constantly in trouble inside and outside of school, always truanting and was suspended a number of times. I didn’t value education at that time.

Despite my past experience, I enrolled at college and on a night course as well. It was a tough year. I passed both courses and was offered a place at the University of Westminster in London. It was an expensive place to live and I didn’t know if I could afford to go. That’s how I came across the Longford Trust.

Feeling safe in a different world…..

I’ll never forget that first meeting. Discussing my scholarship application in a fancy coffee shop with the scholarship manager, I remember thinking, for the first time in a very long time, that I felt safe, I didn’t have to worry about seeing someone I had issues with and it ending in violence.

It was so far removed from my daily life, but I enjoyed it. It was a seed being planted.

University life in London was a different world to me.

I remember the looks on the faces of the students I lived with when I told them about my life, like the time I was shot at and felt a bullet fly past my head. They looked horrified, I had always laughed about it before.

University was the first place I had a social circle who thought it crazy to be shot at or stabbed, and not a normal part of life.

Whilst at university I applied, and was accepted into, the Royal Marines Reserves (in spite of my past interaction at the armed forces office). I trained hard and studied, my life was on a positive path. Unfortunately, during a training exercise I suffered a significant knee injury which ended my military career before it had properly started.

My dreams were crushed, I felt deflated. I finished my first year of University but never returned.

I dropped out. Again, I felt a failure.

On paper I would have been a failed statistic for the Longford Trust. I hadn’t completed the degree I started.

But how do we measure success?

There are the obvious ways; did I pass, did I drop out, did I achieve 100%? But what about the other, less obvious successes? Like gaining experience of life outside of my area, associating with people doing legal jobs with legit ambitions, broadening my view of what was possible.

Maybe a better way to measure success is to ask if a scholar was afforded the opportunity to avoid the criminal or gang life for long enough to walk away from it? The answer for me was yes.

Fast forward to today, 10 years later: At 31-years-old, I now run a successful organisation working with young people to prevent criminal exploitation. I also work in schools using my own experiences to help safeguard children. I have travelled around the world, have a house, a stable relationship and a son. I am a better person.

On top of all of that, I am back studying at university, going into my third year of a Psychology degree through the Open University.

So why the email out of the blue to the Longford Trust? For me, starting that degree in 2012 as a scholar was the catalyst for change in my life.

The experience of attending university outside of my home city, meeting people with different life experiences and seeing a future without crime were what I needed to spark a change.

I would not be where I am today without that first chance as a student.

The degree did not change my life. The opportunity to access a new life and a new area did.

If success is only measured within small timescales, what happens to those that require a longer time to grow but eventually reach great heights?

No matter where you are today, don’t measure your success against where you are now. Learn to look at life as a series of opportunities in which seeds are planted. Some will take longer to flower than others, but no seed planted is ever wasted. You never know which one will grow to be giant.

Take the opportunity, it is so much more than a degree.

Thank you to the Longford Trust for supporting me and believing in me. Even though I failed first time round, it led me to much greater heights of success.

 

Opening doors is key to success: an expert’s view

Author: | 19 Jun 2020

You may have a first-class degree and a brilliant business idea, but doors can remain firmly shut if you are not “the right sort” 

In an increasingly competitive jobs market, the Longford Trust is offering additional employment support and training to Longford scholars to turn their university degrees into successful careers.

Mark Neild is a Longford Trust Mentor and lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at Bristol University who has been advising our scholars. Here he writes for Longford Blog: 

It is curious that something we cannot see, touch or smell has such a huge impact on our life chances.

Social Capital refers to the resources available to people due to the connections and relationships they have.  It was popularised by the French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu who described 3 types of capital: economic, cultural and social.

Raising capital: hard with a poor credit rating

Economic capital we can all understand – in simple terms it determines our ability to buy resources.  It can be really important for those starting a business for, as the old truism goes, it is easy to raise money for a venture if you don’t need it.  For Longford Scholars, and others trying to start businesses without wealthy friends and family, they do need capital. And raising capital is doubly hard if you have black marks on your credit history.

Of course, it’s your fault if a repayment fails because the previous day a Proceeds of Crime order emptied your bank account, or if you failed to redirect your mail when you were sentenced, and are therefore denied any recourse in the County Court.  Even various charities that purport to include ex-offenders among the people they fund seem to find excuses not to support entirely plausible plans for sustainable businesses from them.

But there is good news….. 

If you look around there is support for talented business-minded people to avoid the degrading and discriminatory rituals often associated with gaining regular employment. Phoenix is a programme that works with ex-offenders to make the most of their skills to sell directly to customers. The “secret weapon” behind the programme is innovation.  We may not be able to magic up money, but we can show you how to avoid needing it.

How does that work? Well, here’s how. Much like crowd-funding, you dangle a particularly enticing proposition and show prospective partners how, with a bit of faith and investment in kind, that proposition can be realised. It is amazing how doors can open.

One Scholar’s success story

Take the first Scholar we worked with on our programme. Faced with his second institutional funding rejection, we helped him to develop a business idea that needed less capital.  By partnering with an existing landlord, he showed how the property could make more money by setting up as a halfway house for ex-offenders. And, hey presto, the landlord funded conversion works while our Scholar brought in the business. Now they both earn nicely.

But Social Capital is a different beast.  You may have a first-class degree and a brilliant business idea, but institutional doors still remain firmly shut if you are not “the right sort”.  This can be particularly problematic if your business sells to big organisations because, no matter how great your product, if you can’t pitch it nobody will ever know how great it is.  It is not that big institutions are particularly discriminatory (although, of course, some are), it is more that they are fundamentally risk averse and so struggle with ideas that originate outside their collective world view, or outside the social and cultural bubble that invisibly shapes the way they think – a point made very well by Ross Baird in his recent book, Innovation Blind Spot.

The sad truth is that procurement practice favours big companies with the resources to answer lengthy, complicated questionnaires asking about risk-management processes that, frankly, have no bearing on the quality of services delivered.  Even I, who have negotiated £billion contracts for government departments, found working through the labyrinth of the government’s new “simplified” buying process. It is a daunting and time-consuming process.  And, truth be told, unless you have the social capital to show the commissioners “what good really looks like”, they will never know and continue procuring the “same old, lame old” things.

But, hell, one of the biggest reasons for becoming an entrepreneur is to flout convention.  If a product really is better, we WILL find a way of bringing it to market.  And I am delighted to say that the Longford Trust is playing its part.  Among the current cohort of our Phoenix programme participants, we can count for four Longford Scholars, thanks in large part to Jacob, who runs the trust’s e-community app for its past and present award-holders.

Rehabilitation: ‘walking the walk’

What is particularly innovative is that each Scholar has a business idea that will improve the experience of ex-offenders in transitioning back into society.  They have been through it, so have first-hand knowledge of what needs to change, as well as the credibility with “service users” to bring about real and lasting change.

Being able to articulate persuasively the benefits of their approach is an essential part of the package. And that’s what we at Phoenix have been helping the Scholars with. It goes without saying that they need to show they don’t just have the ‘talk’, but can ‘walk the walk’. In other words, they can put in place the right systems and processes to make their vision happen.  None of this means anything, though, unless they can open the doors to the relevant commissioners.

This is where the wider Longford Trust community comes in.

Every year at the Longford Lecture hundreds of rehabilitation champions come together to celebrate talent, penal reform and second chances. Hundreds of people, many with extraordinary connections and experience in industry, business and entrepreneurialism, are united in a warm glow of good will, and ask, what can we do to help? So many Scholars have the ideas, the educational qualifications and the first-hand experience to build successful rehabilitation services. Here’s my suggestion: if you are able to open one door for one of them, please do. They might make a better job of rehabilitation than the politicians have recently!

Who knows whether it will work but, as we say to successive cohorts, the only failure is failure to try.

 

Spending time with lawyers focused on a fresh start

Author: | 25 Feb 2020

My day with the lawyers by Scholar Ash Rookwood….

Towards the end of 2019 Ash met staff involved in regulating solicitors as part of a training event. For Longford Blog, he reflects on the experience and what it says about rehabilitation.

 

The day in December when I met staff at the Solicitors Regulation Authority – the body which oversees who can and can’t be a solicitor, ensuring professional standards -was a little different from my normal routine. As a postgraduate student of Behavioural Economics, I have begun my career in the City and financial sector. I am committed to helping influence and embed positive change throughout the world, so meeting staff at the regulator seemed like a good idea – especially as they had recently reviewed their policy on applicants with a criminal conviction. I was heartened by the fact they were moving away from a one-size-fits all approach. Encouraged that they were committed to understanding more about how people make good after an offence, move on and repay second chances.

A double-act with a task….

So, what were my first impressions when I arrived at the venue in Birmingham for their away day? Everyone was friendly, keen to get to know me and what made me tick. Keen to find out about my background and circumstances of my younger life. It seemed to me that they were taking early steps in understanding someone like me and another scholar. We were a double-act, our task for the day was to tell how we had walked our path to rehabilitation.

I’m articulate and unashamedly ambitious, I’ve got my string of GCSEs, A levels and a First class, honours degree and yes, most of them had been achieved in prison through sheer hard work and determination to make the most of my potential. Just by being in the room with the regulators, showing them that someone who has been in custody can be articulate and is frankly ‘normal’ seemed an early win. It was essential in my mind to help everyone in the room to put a face to a criminal record, show them we’re not all scary and dangerous looking. I could potentially be an applicant.

The risk/rehabilitation equation.….

What emerged is an understandable priority of risk. Risk – and limiting it- both sides played into the rehabilitation equation. Weeding out who has made good, who hasn’t and who never will. As guardians of solicitors’ professional integrity, on one level risk management must, of course, be up there. But on another level, and this is one of the reasons it was so good to have the face-to-face dialogue, it is important to develop self-awareness about the need for nuance and insight, challenging perceptions. That’s why I am so pleased myself and the other scholar were able to start an important conversation.

There was one question which took me by surprise. The gist of the questioning focused on a concern about external factors. What can be done about the public perception of applicants with a criminal record? Whilst unexpected, I was pleased they’d had a chance to air the concern. They were able to articulate their fears, they have an alternative perception of what they see on the news. All we can do is give our narrative, they can reflect and address their fears. I sincerely hope that’s what we achieved.

Lessons from Hollywood …

On returning to my regular professional life, it brought to mind a new film “Just Mercy”, which tells the real-life story of a civil rights attorney who defends inmates on death row in Alabama who are subject to questionable convictions.

I was lucky enough to have attended an advanced showing, and subsequently meet stars Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx and Bryan Stevenson at a private dinner. Real-life lawyer Bryan Stevenson, played by Jamie Foxx – has a profound saying,

‘Each of us is more than the worst we’ve ever done’.

So true. Yet too often a criminal record from a terrible two or three seconds when someone is young becomes THE thing which defines them for life. They’ve done their time, just as I did. Most have shown remorse, as I have. They’ve been punished, rehabilitated and moved away from the guy they were seven years ago. Yet, the way our records system is at the moment it’s like asking someone what’s your worst mistake? Everyone has to know. Which is the opposite to how it works for most of us. When most people go for jobs, we are defined by what we do best.

As punishment- and its severity- becomes the running thread through current news, policies  and law-making, it makes it more important than ever for someone like me with ambition, goals and wholehearted commitment to continuing a successful life sits down with decision makers. It will take a while for significant changes but I’m convinced my day with the lawyers was a game-changer. I sincerely trust that it’s a step in the right direction for all lawyers in the making.

 

 

If you are interested in studying law with the support of the Longford Trust, take a look at our Patrick Pakenham scholarships for a law degree.