About two years ago I started visiting HMP Springhill open prison to give talks to groups of inmates on the topic of employment prospects in the data cabling and IT networking industries. Eventually I got around to offering one of them work experience at Lynx Networks. He's allowed out for up to 12 hours a day to help him rehabilitate back into the outside world. It's worked very well and the rest of the team at Lynx now has a much better impression of ex-offenders.
We have since taken on a second ex-offender; he's working on site assisting our cabling teams. Clearly, we won't take on people that have been convicted of any crime that would put our employees, customers or property at risk.
We are hoping to set up a scheme whereby we collect prisoners on day release from HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes and let them shadow our cabling installation technicians. Looking ahead, maybe we could have a nationwide alliance of cabling companies that help ex-offenders rehabilitate in society and not re-offend.
I'd be interested in hearing your views on this.
Alan Bullen
Managing director
Lynx Networks
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