Taxpayer getting more value for money with HMP Leeds

Thanks to the partnership between Shine CIC and HMP Leeds and in particular their joint vision to create an entrepreneurial culture amongst the prisoners, Bryn Abbott of Kitzo Creative has recently launched his range of greetings cards.

The cards are designed by Bryn and then sent into to HMP Leeds' Printstudio to be checked, printed, cut and folded by prisoners who are hard at work, preparing themselves for a more purposeful release.

These sort of partnerships are absolutely what HMP Leeds encourages in order to give prisoners a more creative environment and they are involved in every stage of the process, so as to gain a feeling of self-worth but at the same time having to work hard to achieve timely results. Steve Freer, business development manager said: "If the country is to recover from the economic downturn as soon as possible then we need to be doing our bit and by ensuring prisoners can enage in meaningful businesses like Kitzo Creative, we are sending them out better prepared and with a work ethic we know businesses need.

As more and more employers become open to giving prisoners that second chance, we need to continue to work hard to ensure our selection policy doesn't fail them and Bryn's business is a perfect platform from which we can monitor the individual progress of prisoners who are to be linked with an employer on release from prison."

Pic: Gail Glover, sales director of Shine, card designer Bryn Abbott, and Steve Freer, business development officer for Leeds Prison, with cards printed by inmates

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