Iceland Foods executive director Richard Walker has said it is “common sense” for retailers to provide more employment opportunities for prisoners, after the opening of Iceland’s first ‘supermarket’ in a prison.
The Iceland-branded store opened in March at HMP Oakwood in Staffordshire. It is one of several retail and hospitality concepts to open at the site, as part of a ‘marketplace’ trial being run by operator G4S aimed at helping to reduce reoffending by providing prisoners with employment skills.
Through the model, Iceland supplies products and uniforms to the fully fitted store. G4S runs the store independently, and selects inmates to staff the store, according to The Times, which first reported the opening.
The model serves two purposes. One is to provide a sense of normality for the prison population, with inmates able to earn credit that can be spent on groceries in Iceland, or at other stores within the prison marketplace, which is called Cherry Blossom.
The second is as a “training academy”, designed to give inmates employed within the store key skills and work experience to help better equip them to find a role after their release.
This could even lead to a role with Iceland, through its Second Chances Scheme. If Oakwood inmates do well, they are put in touch with Iceland’s head of rehabilitation Paul Cowley, who will see if they are suitable to be offered a role within Iceland once they have finished their sentence.
“We are proud to be supporting their innovative approach to rehabilitation and social reform,” Walker said in a post to LinkedIn following the opening.
“It is bold, it is practical, and it is grounded in the idea that if we want different outcomes, we need to try different approaches.”
Iceland has successfully employed 350 prison leavers, and has offered roles to a further 300, since launching the Second Chances Scheme in 2022. Cowley has set the long-term aim of employing more than 3,000 former prisoners across the supermarket’s supply chain.
It includes ongoing plans to create a new sector coalition of food and drink companies, which would create thousands more opportunities for prison across the food and drink supply chain.
The talks – which were first revealed by The Grocer in March – are understood to propose relaunching Iceland’s Second Chance Scheme as a separate not-for-profit, which would then collaborate with other coalition partners to find suitable roles for prisoners.
“These are individuals who want to move forward and contribute. With the right support they are doing exactly that,” Walker continued in his LinkedIn post.
“Our model is cautious and well vetted. But I believe there is huge potential for other retailers to get involved too, which is why we are working to develop this into a model that others can adopt,” he added.
“It is not about soft justice. It is about common sense. Giving people purpose and helping prevent reoffending.”
Walker and Cowley were also among a number of business leaders to meet with justice secretary Shabana Mahmood and prisons minister James Timpson in October to discuss a “blueprint” for how businesses can improve their approach to employing former prison leavers as way of helping to bring down the UK’s soaring prison population.
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