Corrections Community

An update on something Scott posted back in February re: the Thinking Skills for the Workplace course being run in the UK. 

It's being run in a number of prisons in the North West of England (with males, females, and juveniles).  The course is also being run in the community through probation and other criminal justice agencies, and staff in the correctional service in Finland are also going to be taking it on. 

The Thinking Skills for the Workplace course has been developed by Janet McLellan (Forensic Psychologist) and her contact details are now on the comments page of the bolton evening news article if anyone wants any further info.  The second article is from the Guardian Newspaper in the uk (a fairly decent paper IMHO)

 http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/display.var.1193172.0.offenders_on_track_for_life_without_crime.php

http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2058265,00.html

Anyway, just wanted to flag it up in case anyone is interested!

Thanks for posting those links Lauren.  The folks in the UK are very progressive in the area of offender workforce development and it makes perfect sense to marry cognitive programs with workforce development programs.  If you come across any additional information please post it, and I will do the same. 

Has any one ever looked at the UK Offender Rehabilitation ACT of 1974. Which considers denial of employment on the basis of prior conviction record is an ACT of discrimination. It also says that if an individual has spent their term in jail regardless of the sentence cannot by law be asked of his her prior conviction record.

If USA has this kind of legislated ACT we would see a 200% decrease in recidivist rate across america.

Check it out just type Offender Rehabilitation Act 19974 uk

Several states and the District of Columbia have laws or are considering laws limiting what employers can ask about criminal records.

For more information, click here, here, and here.