Thirty or so years ago, a couple of lawyers, who were regular visitors to a London prison, realising that inmates would only reoffend if they left prison unable to find work, resolved to do something about it.
They set up the Prisoners Education Trust (PET).
While prisons have education classes for all, they wanted the trust to provide specific accredited vocational courses to meet the needs of particular prisoners. Only 28 per cent of prisoners find employment after release. Last month I met (remotely) the current Chief Executive of PET, Jon Collins.
He wanted to tell me how they had used a small grant we had given them to fund online courses for eight South Yorkshire prisoners.
