Why Prison Officers

Prison officers are the agents of change within prisons.

We believe that rehabilitation must be embedded across prisons in order to break cycles of reoffending. The way to do this is through prison officers.

The transformative relationships that they are able to build with the prisoners in their care are key to creating a rehabilitative environment. In the same way that a good teacher can transform a child’s life, a remarkable prison officer can radically change the outcomes for a prisoner in their care.

A prison officer is integral to anyone’s prison experience. If you ask anyone who’s served time or is serving time, they’ll tell you that a good officer can make all the difference.

Femi, Ex-prisoner

At the heart of the prison service is a human-to-human relationship, and the right interaction with a prison officer at the right moment can make a huge difference to someone’s life.

Developing Future Prison Leaders

The Unlocked Graduates programme is carefully designed to provide our participants with the deep domain expertise required to be effective prison officers and high-performing leaders on the landings. Our curriculum is informed by Scandinavian models of prison officer training and draws on best practice from a range of other sectors including teaching, social work and policing.

Our two-year leadership development programme is giving participants the skills required to drive improvements in prisons. We encourage our officers to go beyond the day-to-day of the role and think bigger – we want them to identify new solutions to fix some of the problems facing their prisons, supporting the rehabilitation of the prisoners in their care and driving system reform.