In just five months a film released only online about prisoners learning catering skills and featuring Open University history professor Rosalind Crone has gone on to gain over 106,000 views and collect a trade award.
The film, commissioned by the Ministry of Justice, shows how prisoners at HM Prison Lincoln learn new skills through training them for roles in the catering industry.
“Served” is a 40-minute film available on YouTube and other social media channels that charts the progress of a team of prisoners from learning catering skills in an on-site purpose-built restaurant called Berties.
Now it has just won “Best Use of Social Media and/or Influencers in a Campaign” at the recent Public Relations and Communications Association’s Public Affairs Awards.
Rosalind features in the film because of her work on the history of prisons as a member of the OU’s Centre for the History of Crime, Policing and Justice.
Plugging the hospitality skills gap
The aim of the project is to help prisoners achieve a level of skill so they can fill some of the current 129,000 vacancies in the hospitality industry and earn a living when they are released.
The film reveals how it was supported by adult skills training provider Peopleplus and charity The Right Course, which is run by TV’s Fred Sirieix, the French maître d’hôtel best known for appearing on Channel 4’s First Dates, and BBC Two’s Million Pound Menu.
He makes appearances in the footage, especially when the restaurant opens to prison staff, relatives and friends of the inmates.
Rosalind said:
“For more than 200 years, rehabilitation has been one of the key aims of the modern prison, alongside punishment and deterrence, and I was very pleased to be able to share some of that history in this film.
“I am delighted it has won an award, and I hope its success signals the beginning of a sea change in public perceptions of prisons and prisoners. Our prisons are currently in crisis, but meaningful reform is dependent on public engagement and an awareness of the humanity of prisoners. Successful rehabilitation benefits everyone, prisoners and public.”
Alongside training for work, education is an important and proven tool for rehabilitation in prisons. The Open University is the primary provider of Higher Education in prisons and secure units in the UK, operating in over 150 prisons, delivering teaching and learning to approximately 1,800 students in secure environments each year. Participation in education improves behaviour in prison, reduces reoffending, and transforms lives.
For more on the history of prisons, rehabilitation and the role of education, a free course, ‘Exploring the history of prisoner education’, developed by Rosalind, is available on The Open University’s OpenLearn platform: https://t.co/X8gMQUEL6d
- The Centre for the History of Crime, Policing and Justice promotes and enables research into criminal justice history around the world and to generate the exchange of ideas between academics, criminal justice practitioners and serving and retired policemen.
- Training of the inmates was also achieved through Peopleplus, one of the leading adult skills and training providers in the UK, delivering adult education, prison education, skills-based employability programmes and support to enable people to live independently across the country.
