Veterans WORLD 8

CONTINUING TO ‘REACH OUT’ TO VETERANS IN PRISON

The Prison in Reach Project continues the partnership work between the MOD, the Ministry of Justice, ex-Service Charities and other volunteer organisations to provide support, advice and assistance to ex-Service personnel, and their dependants whilst they are serving a custodial sentence or who are ex-offenders.

As reported in Issue 6, a new initiative has raised awareness of welfare support to veterans. Every prison has now received information packs containing posters, leaflets and advice wallets providing contact details for each of the ex-Service charities and volunteer organisations that assist ex-Service prisoners and their dependants.

Since then, requests for assistance have steadily increased. A total of 229 enquiries were made in the first half of this year. Of these, 121 cases were awarded grants totalling £54,548, providing resources for education, training and resettlement with the remaining cases being referred to other organisations for further support. This is a notable increase in the number of enquiries received. The previous year’s enquiries totalled 397, of which 203 received a total of £116,670.

Work has also commenced on an in-prison survey, to establish the number of ex-Service personnel currently serving a custodial sentence. To date, a pilot survey has been conducted within part of HMP Dartmoor, with the results showing that 16.75% of those surveyed had undertaken military service.

Future plans are to roll out the survey to all the prisons. It is anticipated, that the information gathered will both provide a national picture of the ex-Service prison population and in the future allow a more tailored approach to delivering support information to the ex-Service component of the population.

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