Paul's expedition to North Carolina

Paul McMinn travelled to North Carolina for five weeks under the Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship. The father-of--two studied ways in which State and Federal Prisons attempt to reduce re-offending by young people through the use of prison-based work programmes.

The former Faughan Valley pupil will now share his Fellowship research, entitled 'Enhancing the Work Skills of Disadvantaged Young Offenders' with a number of agencies concerned with the administration of justice and with the welfare of young people within Northern Ireland.

"Personally, it was a wonderful trip," Paul told the Sentinel. "I was away for five weeks and it was fascinating to be able to talk to people and to go to places that I could never have as a tourist or an individual. It was a real privilege to be given to opportunity do this work and to see how other societies were dealing with the same issues that we are experiencing."

Paul describes how he entered the prestigous programme: "I had been involved in working with young unemployed people some years ago and I retained an interest in youth issues.

Having a son who has just left his teenage years, I was aware of the difficulty young people can have in gaining useful employment even those who have a clean record and good qualifications. For those with a criminal record, it is obviously much worse. Young people in this situation can't get a job and crucially can't gain experience in work. It is not very long before they are left behind and many may never get a permanent job.

"It seemed wrong to me that young people who may have made a stupid mistake in their youth could be penalised for many years after they had paid for that mistake."

Paul continued; "A friend who had been awarded a fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust a few years ago, had mentioned that carrying out a project to look into ways of helping communities is just the sort of activity that the trust was willing to consider funding, so I decided to carry out some research into places that were already attempting to reduce crime by enhancing employment opportunities.

"I found out about a scheme in North Carolina where companies were invited to set up factories and workshops within prisons, using inmates as their employees. So I applied to the Trust, outlining what I had learned and how I thought it could be adopted for use in Northern Ireland. I was invited to an interview in London last January in order to explain the project in more depth and a few weeks later I found out I was successful."

Paul was not on an itinerary on the trip but in fact had to organise all meetings, visits and research himself. Although he wasn't allowed direct access to prisoners, he says his experience and observation of the justice system was enlightening.

"From what I could see the North Carolina system was very cohesive. There were strong links between each stage and between different bodies. Also, the prisoners were not given any special treatment in terms of work opportunities.

They had to apply for jobs and had to undergo the same recruitment processes that they would have had to outside of prison. The companies were given free reign as to who they could employ and employees were subject to the same rules of employment and discipline as any others.

The companies provided on-the-job training and paid the same wages as they did to other non-prison based employees.

"Although there was no guarantee of employment when a prisoner was released, they at least had valuable skills, experience and certificates of training.

" In fact were offered the same or better jobs by the companies when they left, if they impressed their supervisors with their skills and productivity."

The Londonderry man now hopes his research can now improve local agencies in addressing re-offending.

"I now have six months to write up what I was given access to and I have undertaken to pass the report to various bodies, both private and public, that are concerned with young people and with helping offenders to break out of their offending behaviour and become useful and productive members of society.

"The hope is that some of these bodies may be able to act on this research and put in place programmes to assist young offenders get a good, well paid job."

Paul concluded: "Carrying out the research under the auspices of the trust made the whole process much easier, opened doors and help break the ice when I went into prisons and Courts.

"Wherever I went people were very keen to now more about the trust and how they help people undertake projects such as this one."