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Just A Prisoner’s Voice
By Bobby Hossain
Some of you may remember the old Oxfam charity appeal. Give a man a fish and he will feed his family for a day, teach him how to fish and give him the tools and he will feed his family for a life time.
IF…. you came in to my cell and asked me ‘what do you want to gain while in prison & what do you want to do when you get out’? This would be my answer…. I want to gain as much work related education as possible. I would love to become a trained and qualified youth worker, like the great ex-offenders who work for Nacro and St Giles Trust. I have so much previous experience as a volunteer youth worker for YMCA and Nacro but deep down I know to achieve this goal in jail is unrealistic. Another more realistic option would be to train as an electrician or plumber and to gain City & Guilds qualifications which are the same you get in college. So that when I am released in just under two years time, I can go straight to work maybe even start my own business.
The key in both are ‘a positive approach to prison’. Now here is why. Both these options will never happen while in prison. The prison I am in and the last 4 I have been in do not offer any such education. I can gain in English and Maths level 1 certificates. Very basic and unneeded for someone like me. Or get put on the year long waiting list to do a mechanics course which takes a full year to complete. By the time I get on this course I will have less than a year to serve so will not have enough time to compete it. So what options do I have? I can take part in the numerous non work related very basic education courses equivalent to GCSE grade D, which I achieved 10 years ago. One positive is they take up my time in prison.
Well I have a dream, a simple one more of a day dream. Why can we not make all c category prisons training prisons? All working in conjunction with the local colleges to deliver the same curriculum offered in outside colleges with the obvious restrictions. Prisoners would have to earn the privilege of gaining an education of real value by behaving and being a model prisoner. This could actually create over 80,000 newly trained ready to work ex-offenders every year and could reduce re-offending immensely. What a positive impact would this have on the outside public and society. Every year you would have 80,000 prisoners with the skills and qualifications to gain meaningful and constructive employment. It is simple prisoners who have work to come out to are much less likely to re-offend.
I may only be one prisoner but my voice stands for many prisoners who are positive good people who made a mistake. We still belong to the same society you do and we still want to be part of society and give back. I will just have to achieve my goals by volunteering, going to college in the evening and working as a labourer or warehouse worker during the day when I get out. Lucky for me I am that driven I have the support. But what about the ones who don’t have that drive or support? Well I suppose it’s not society’s problem and they will just re- offend because that is all that is expected of prisoners.
Bobby Hossain.
February 2013
Between the Bars
Paperback, 124 Pages
Price: $13.05
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This book contains the correspondence between Pip Wilson, who for years worked on the streets of the East End of London, and Bobby Hossain, as he struggled to deal with his feelings whilst inside prison. The diary of communication that flows between them is real and frank. It relates the pain, the days of darkness and the gradual internal strength that Bobby discovered with Pip's help.
