Life Skills 4 Life After Prison: Sowing the Seeds of Social Inclusion for Young Offenders Erasmus Project

Project Title

Life Skills 4 Life After Prison: Sowing the Seeds of Social Inclusion for Young Offenders

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Access for disadvantaged; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Young Offenders in European Prisons

Young people sometimes make mistakes and it seems very difficult for society to forgive.

On any given day, in Europe, more than 7 000 children under the age of 18 are housed in facilities away from home as a result of a juvenile or criminal offense; while it is estimated that 25% of the 1,5 million prison population in Europe is 18 to 24 years old. Almost all of these young people will be released and – unless something changes – more than 50% will not be successful in re-entering their communities and will return to prison.

Having served their sentence and paid their debt to society, these young people are going home to some of Europe’s most deprived neighborhoods and households. Young offenders’ family background is most often criminogenic. They frequently experience non-traditional upbringings, with a range of adults – often of criminal background and/or with mental illnesses – caring for them. They often witness and/or experience abuse and they are frequently excluded from schools (SPCR, 2012).

Although some progress has been made in recent years, since both the number of young people entering the system and the number of young people in custody have reduced, yet, this progress sits alongside an unacceptably high level of re-offeding. 75% of young people released from custody and 68% of young people on community sentences reoffend within a year. Thus, it seems that prison experiences do not have any deterrent or rehabilitative effect in preventing young offenders from re-offending.

Personal Agency as a Powerful Predictor of Desistance from Crime

Up until recently, theories of desistance from crime have for the most part been heavily structural, relying on participation in prosocial roles [employment, marriage, education etc.] as the primary casual mechanism behind quitting crime. These approaches, however, have persistently ignored what had been evident, for a number of years, to many practitioners in the criminal justice sector: an (ex)offenders’ personal identity is probably the most important causal mechanism of desistance. More indicatively, it seems that a critical mass of young (ex)offenders have been more successful in abstaining from crime upon release due to their ability to undertake a major identity change, to undergo a transformation. These people, did not in reality break from their past, but instead they managed to engage in a more positive view of themselves, in a view of a “good person”.

Currently, a wealth of scientific research backs up this observation and provides evidence that individual factors have a powerful role in shaping behavior. Thus, now, desisting from crime is, for the first time, associated with people changing their idea or sense of the kind of person they are and how such a person behaves.

Studying desistance forces us away from static models of people as “offenders”, “criminals” or “prisoners” and encourages an understanding of change(s) in personal identities. This project aims to support – or even accelerate – these changes. By applying the principles of desistance theory, this project envisions the development and the implementation of an intervention that will support today’s “young offender” in becoming tomorrow’s “family men”, “supportive spouses”, “young entrepreneurs”, “hard-working mates” etc. This project implies valuing people for who they are and for what they could become, rather than judging, rejecting or containing them for what they have done.

The Aims and the Objectives of the Skills4Life Project

The Skills4Life project focuses on young offenders’ personal development and tries to make provisions that they are provided the opportunity for personal self-growth and self-development during their life course, so as to gain a sense of direction and prepare for release.

The Skills4Life project serves a dual purpose:
[a]. to frame a new context in which young offenders may shed off “offending identities” and negotiate new, prosocial non-criminal identities and pathways for their lives,
[b]. to provide them the tools to put their lives back on track after release.

The project proposes the development of a holistic learning programme which will look at the needs of the individual – emotional, psychological and social needs – so that they can personally develop and achieve empowerment and independence and provide them the necessary mechanisms to assist them in everyday life. The Skills4Life programme covers a variety of topics including:
• resilience, goal-setting and personal development,
• interpersonal communication, personal presentation, anger management and parenting and family skills
• work skills, home management, budgeting and finance, time management and health and personal hygiene.

A total of eight (8) prisons throughout Europe will test and pilot the Skills4Life methodology, while a total of eighty (80) young offenders are expected to participate and benefit from the project’s activities.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 264999 Eur

Project Coordinator

Institut Saumurois de la Communication & Country: FR

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE
• European Prison Education Association
• CESIE
• Athens Lifelong Learning Institute – Civil Non Profit Organisation