Guy Opperman
Main Page: Guy Opperman (Conservative - Hexham)Department Debates - View all Guy Opperman's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(12 years, 6 months ago)
Commons Chamber7. What steps he is taking to encourage the inclusion of peer mentoring in prisons as part of the training of prison officers.
Prison officer training aims to give officers an awareness of the benefits of peer mentoring currently provided by voluntary sector and faith organisations, such as the Shannon Trust’s toe-by-toe reading plan and the Samaritan-trained listener scheme. Our rehabilitation policy will encourage and facilitate mentoring for offenders by ex-offenders and other members of the public, as all parts of the justice system focus more on outcomes than inputs. The early payment-by-results pilots at Doncaster and Peterborough prisons both use peer mentoring, and the experience of these and all other pilots will guide future training and practice.
Does the Minister believe that the expansion of private provision in prisons and the payment-by-results scheme will lead to more peer mentoring and better prison officer training, and that rehabilitation rates will improve as a result?
Yes, but the payment-by-results scheme is not limited to private sector prisons. We are piloting it in two public sector prisons as well. The National Offender Management Service is to contribute £1.4 million to eight voluntary sector organisations to help with mentoring, and is also involved in a Europe-funded project that is assessing the relative benefits of mentoring by peers and non-peers.