INSIDEJOBSFIND

23 July 1999




INSIDEJOBSFIND

FAVOURONFARM

Ex-cabinet Minister

Jonathan Aitken – serving

time in Standford Hill for

perjury and perverting the

course of justice – could

soon be rolling up his

sleeves up and working on

the prison farm. The Service

likes inmates doing such

work, as Tim Relf finds out

talking to staff at Dartmoor

AS views from a farm managers office go, its got to be unique. In the middle distance, the grey, sombre and imposing facade of one of the countrys most forbidding institutions, HMP Dartmoor.

But Derek Webber is no ordinary farm manager – he runs the prison farm here, 650ha (1600 acres) rented from the Duchy of Cornwall including a dairy herd, a sheep flock and a recently "downsized" beef enterprise.

About 16 to 20 of the 650 inmates typically work on this farm. "Its surprising how working with livestock brings something out of them – it doesnt matter how evil they have been," says Mr Webber. "Its surprising how you can see a man change working with animals.

"If while they are here, they can get into the work ethic – starting at six in the morning and finishing at six in the evening – they know they have done something useful.

"If we can give them a piece of paper – an NVQ – that says they can do something like drive a forklift truck, then they have something to start on the bottom rung of the ladder with when they get out," says Mr Webber.

According to Dartmoor governor John Lawrence, inmates like the chance to work with stock and closely with staff. They like working together, outside and they welcome the opportunity to do physical work. "The whole environment is popular. Very few people will abuse it because they like what they are doing."

&#42 Rehabilitation

As well as rehabilitation, prison farms also have an important production role. Overall, the Service has 3670ha (9039acres) in agribusiness and, nationwide, milk supplied to prison kitchens during 1998/99 was 5.90m litres with another 5.28m litres sold to Milk Marque.

Far fewer work on the land, though, than in the past and the vetting procedure is strict. "We can only put people outside that are safe to the public."

Ten years ago, it would have been 50 or 60 inmates working on the Dartmoor farm. And at the turn of the century, it would have been nearly all of them – but times were different then. "Staff were on horseback with shotguns patrolling," says Mr Lawrence.

It is "therapeutic" work, agrees a spokesman for the Prison Reform Trust. "For lots of people, it will be the first chance they will have had to work on the land."

But it may do little to help inmates employment prospects. "If you want to keep people out of crime on their release, you have to prepare them for the sort of jobs they might go into.

&#42 Not compulsory

"The difficulty is that most prisoners come from urban areas and are unlikely to get farm work if they go back to, say, central London or Manchester."

It remains to be seen, meanwhile, whether Mr Aitken will get his hands dirty at Standford Hill, an open prison in Kent, with its 100 milking cows and 150 sheep. "I wouldnt rule it out," says a spokesman for the Prison Service. "Its not compulsory – its a case of fitting the prisoners to the jobs available."


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