Actor Stephen Graham backs new organisation to help ex-offenders find work

Award-winning actor Stephen Graham is backing a new initiative aimed at helping ex-offenders get jobs in the transport industry, saying it is vital to break the “vicious circle of criminality and unemployment”.

The Rebuilding Futures Alliance (RFA) is a not-for-profit organisation which has been launched to offer former inmates the chance to learn a skilled trade in the rail, bus and other transport sectors.

Graham has become an ambassador for the RFA with his wife, actress Hannah Walters.

Both starred in the BBC prison drama Time, which the alliance says has given them an extra insight into the problems ex-prisoners face.

The RFA has been founded by rail industry stalwart Chris Leech, who said the UK’s reoffending rates are among the highest in the developed world, with one in two people released after short sentences offending again within 12 months.

This figure drops to one in five for those who secure a job with purpose, the RFA said.

A report by the Independent Sentencing Review, published on Tuesday, said the latest data shows those leaving custody have the highest reoffending rates at 37.2%.

This rises to 56.9% for those serving short sentences of less than a year.

Graham said: “Prisons are at breaking point, and when people do leave jail, 50% of individuals within the first 12 months fall back into the vicious circle of criminality and unemployment. The Rebuilding Futures Alliance aims to change all that for low-risk offenders, who account for a large part of the prison population.”

Walters said: “This is game-changing for employment, for public transport, infrastructure and for society. When someone serves their time, it’s critical that they get given the right support to put them on a path and that it is tracked, measured and reported.”

She said: “Ultimately, it’s about saving lives and breaking generational unemployment and criminality amongst low-risk offenders.

“Everyone stands to benefit and we are delighted to be helping to lead this movement for change.”

The RFA is bringing more than 100 past-conviction charities together to help them work directly with the UK’s biggest transport employers.

It said the initiative will also help tackle the workforce shortage in the sector, citing research that 90,000 people will leave the rail industry due to retirement and other reasons over the next five years.

In 2018, research for the Ministry of Justice estimated that reoffending had an estimated cost to the UK of £18.1 billion a year.

Mr Leech said: “To have the backing of such high-profile, talented people who have brought experiences of the prison system to life on the screen is just overwhelming and we can’t thank them enough.”

He said a specially devised tracker will be used to follow each person’s progress into employment and measure the value to the economy.

The RFA said it hopes to branch out across more sectors once the transport rollout is completed.

– Graham is about to star in the Disney+ Victorian boxing drama A Thousand Blows, on which he and Walters are executive producers.