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Employing Ex-Offenders - a conversation with Sid Madge, Founder of Meee
11 Plays2 days ago
In this episode of the Abecederpodcast The Independent Minds, host Michael Millward discusses with Sid Madgefounder of Meee the commercial reasons why employers should seriously consider employing ex-offenders.
In April 2024 data from the UK Police National Computer showed 11 million people in the UK have a criminal record.
A third of men and nine per cent of women will have been convicted of an offence by the age of 53.
Numbers like these suggest that employers who are reluctant to employ ex-offenders, are probably already employing someone with a criminal record.
Sid explains to Michael the work that Meee is doing to prepare offenders for employment and the results they are achieving.
You will learn about some of the causes of crime, and the role employment plays breaking the cycle of crime prison crime, that many offenders struggle to break.
The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr.
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Find out more about both Michael Millward, Sid Madge and Meee at Abeceder.co.uk
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose
00:00:05
Speaker
on zencastr Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abysseedah and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:22
Speaker
I am your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abysseedah. Today I'm going to be discussing alternative sources of candidates, people who have an unconventional work history, with Sid Madge, the founder of the Me Programme.
00:00:38
Speaker
Today we are going to be focusing on ex-offenders. As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr.
00:00:49
Speaker
Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that just makes making content so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr, visit zencastr.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abysida.
00:01:05
Speaker
All the details are in the description. Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencast is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:21
Speaker
As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Today my guest,
Meet Sid Madge
00:01:30
Speaker
Independent Mind, is Sid Madge from the ME program which is spelt with three letter E's.
00:01:37
Speaker
Sid is joining me today from North Wales. Whenever I visit North Wales, I make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because that is where I can access trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays, and all sorts of other travel related purchases.
00:01:54
Speaker
You can as well if you are a member. If you want to be a member, there is a link and a membership discount code in the description. Now that I've paid the heating bill, it is time to make that episode of The Independent Minds.
00:02:08
Speaker
Hello Sid. Hello Michael. What is the weather like in in North Wales today in the middle of, well, the end of January 2025? It's slightly overcast but it's not windy and it's not raining so about nine degrees, so happy days.
The ME Programme's Origin
00:02:25
Speaker
We've got all the things that you haven't got here in Yorkshire today then so ah we'll have to do a swap at some point in time but Please could we start by you telling me a little bit about you your history and how you came to set up the ME program.
00:02:38
Speaker
I started ah the ME program 10 years ago and before that I was a branding and marketing consultant. So I'd spent 20, 30 years working around the world, you know, working for organizations, you know, to help them with their communications.
00:02:53
Speaker
I like to call it coloring in because I used to get paid a lot of money to kind of do coloring in and be creative, which is fantastic. And then over 10 years ago, i relocated up to North Wales and the Welsh government asked me to go into schools to do talks about being an entrepreneur and kind of doing business stuff.
00:03:09
Speaker
So I did. And first school I went to, I took a very simple question in, which was what one word would use to describe yourself into a classroom of year 10, year 11. Peoples, about 20, 30 of them, you know, 14, 15 years
00:03:22
Speaker
So I asked him this question and the first lad that I asked for the answer said, weirdo. And I thought he was being beautifully creative. And I said to him, what a brilliant word. And he said, no, Sid, he said, I'm bullied. I don't fit in in the school.
00:03:34
Speaker
So I said to him, well, part that thought for the moment, went around the rest of the class and asked them and are and at least 30 to 40% of them associated with negative you know perceptions such as abnormal, freak, misfit and whatever.
00:03:46
Speaker
And I'd had a whole bunch of slides, only had an hour, you know, prepared to do with, you know, Elon Musk or whoever it is. Anyway, so I sort of went, well, hang on a minute, that's not going to work.
00:03:57
Speaker
And then um we started to talk about where does that thinking, where do those perceptions come from? Are they environmental, you know, spiritual, psychological, physical, all the rest of it? And I said, well, okay, so if we've got a bias towards a negative perception, how do we change that? And I likened it to an operating system in a phone.
00:04:14
Speaker
And then literally, I came up with some crazy creative exercises within the next sort of 40, 50 minutes to help people change their thinking. And literally, that's what happened. People started to think differently.
00:04:26
Speaker
At the end of the session, we all agreed we're all freaks and misfits and weirdos and what a wonderful world it is. And then from there, i just did a load of research into, you know, things that, you know, 10 over or over 10 years ago, people weren't really talking about.
00:04:39
Speaker
which was sort of self-harm rates, you know, kids being excluded from schools and stuff, et cetera, et cetera. And thought, well, look, I've helped big organisations around the world with communications and change perceptions and all that behaviours and whatever.
00:04:52
Speaker
Surely I could do something to help, you know, people who are most in need. And that's how it
From Education to Prisons
00:04:57
Speaker
started, really. We started working for the Department of Work and Pensions, and then it progressed on to prisons and bigger organisations and, you know, people who were struggling to ah transform their lives. And that's how it started, really.
00:05:09
Speaker
Why do you spell me with three E's? Great question. Well, it started because it was about education, employment and enterprise. And at the end was my.
00:05:21
Speaker
And then it kind of developed into magic every day, everywhere, in everyone. And that's really what we find is that we help people find, live and give their magic because there is magic in every human being, however obtuse, creative or whatever that is. And that's really what it stands for now.
00:05:39
Speaker
You've listed off all sorts of different diverse groups that you've worked with there, but today we're talking about ex-offenders, people who've engaged with the criminal justice system in some way. are you interested in in those people?
00:05:54
Speaker
started working in pupil referral units, especially units well or schools where kids were sort of, I suppose, kicked out of school. And it was really interesting,
00:06:05
Speaker
You know, obviously, because I kind of never been in a crew and I started working with these young kids and then realized they were so creative and they just didn't fit the system. So then started working with the Department of Work and Pensions, who basically were their parents.
00:06:21
Speaker
And we found that over 40 to 50 percent of those people hated school and hated education. And then naturally, well, then I met somebody who was within ah a prison and said, would you like to come in and see if you can help prisoners? So that's what I did. So it was just a natural progression, really, from kind of education into prisons and then started working in the prison service or in the justice system and then kind of thought, well, hang on a minute.
00:06:46
Speaker
you know there's ah There's a pattern here is that people who don't perform particularly well at school sometimes end up either unemployed or down the route of crime. And I thought, well, hang on a minute. These people are really clever. They're really creative. They've got great independent minds, great thinkers.
00:07:02
Speaker
So why does that happen? And how might we
Systemic Challenges and Labels
00:07:05
Speaker
change that? And that's why, really. I can see the sense of that. If you don't fit into the system, the system throws you out, but it doesn't actually throw you out in a constructive way or provide you with other options. And once you've got a label, then it's very hard to shake off the label that a system that doesn't fit with you has given you.
00:07:26
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. and and it's just And it's so sad because that self-perception, you know, that sort of mindset that we seem to foster at an early age seems to perpetuate in many circumstances where, you know, young people lose that sense of purpose, don't fit in So, you know, get into... I mean, there was a man I met last week, you know, funny enough, his name was Sid. And he said, my life of crime started at 10. Yeah.
00:07:55
Speaker
And he's literally, he'll be 69 next week. And he said, I've spent virtually all of my life in prison or in ball stalls or in wherever it is. And we did a session with him and or with a a group of of of ex-offenders.
00:08:09
Speaker
And he said, Sid, you know, this is the first time that anyone has ever explained this to me of why I think and feel and behave the way that I do. And it's heartbreaking, Michael, it really is. He said, the system has let me down throughout my life.
00:08:22
Speaker
You know, he was in care, you know, went through a horrific time as a child and has just ended up on this sort of pathway, really, which is just heartbreaking. Yes, you having been a secondary school governor, you do hear these stories and you sort think that the system isn't designed for people who don't fit into the system. There is no alternative system for people who don't want to be or are not suited to the academic focus that most of our education system has.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, and it's it's a shame because, it's you know, when you look at kind of, we look at preschool and primary school, which we do work in, and you take these amazingly creative beings, you know, I mean, there's a great thing, isn't there? You know, how many times does the average four-year-old smile in a day? It's about 200 to 300 times a day.
00:09:08
Speaker
The average adult is about 12 to 15. And then you look at the amount of questions that you know your average four-year-old asks, something like 437 questions in a day, because they're so curious.
00:09:20
Speaker
you know They have that independent thinking. And in primary school, I've got three kids in primary school right now. They're so fertile. They're so creative. And then as soon as we switch them into the secondary system, which is all about results and all that kind of stuff, look at the dropout rate. i mean, there was something in the Times paper the other day. It's over 800,000 kids who were not in full-time education, you know, from secondary school. You kind of go, wow, because the system doesn't fit or they don't fit the system. And you're like, look at the untapped potential.
00:09:52
Speaker
Yes. And a lot of that potential ends up, like you say, going into unconstructive life cycles or
Criminal Records and Employment
00:10:01
Speaker
lifestyles. But ask me why why I'm interested in ex-offenders.
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah, Michael, so why are you interested in ex-offenders? Where does that kind of come from? It's logical for an HR professional to have to be interested in former offenders, ex-offenders, people with experience of the criminal justice system.
00:10:22
Speaker
We face a workforce crisis, battle for talent, war for talent, call it whatever it is that you wish, but there aren't simply enough people around with the right skills, knowledge and attitudes.
00:10:34
Speaker
to fill all the potential vacancies that we have coming forward. So if Great Britain or UK Incorporated is going to to develop, it needs to find a way of employing in the right jobs those people who have fallen out of the conventional and way of working, way of employment, conventional lifestyles.
00:10:57
Speaker
And it's it's something that I don't think we're very good at across the board. In the UK, we need to get better at saying that person has experience of the criminal justice system.
00:11:09
Speaker
How do we find a way to employ that person that is constructive and keeps them out of reent or re-entry into the criminal justice system?
00:11:21
Speaker
purely economic interest, purely the fact that if you're going to grow a business, any sort of business, you've got to be more open-minded about the people that you're going to employ. Yeah, brilliant. I love that. Because it is a big problem, isn't it?
00:11:33
Speaker
For an awful lot of people, they see a police officer when the police officer is driving a car through their area or they see them on the motorway or all sorts of things. If you've not had experience of the criminal justice system, that's your exposure to the police and the criminal justice system.
00:11:51
Speaker
For other people, their exposure would be that knock on the door at breakfast time or bit earlier when know you aren't you're not going anywhere, you're going down to the station for questioning and there's several police cars have come to make sure that you make that journey to the police station.
00:12:08
Speaker
But a lot of people are very distant from the criminal justice system, but an amazing number of people are involved and have a relationship with the criminal justice system. It's ah about 11 million people in the UK, according to police national computer figures from April 2024.
00:12:27
Speaker
11 million people. There are only 70 million people in there in the UK. So it's it's it's a seventh of our population. Yeah, it's amazing. Apparently a third of men and 9% of women will have been convicted of an offence by the age of 53.
00:12:46
Speaker
That is an amazing amount from my perception. And, know, a criminal offense can be all sorts of different things. There could be that, that night where you got a little bit drunk and, uh, drunk and disorderly. It's a criminal offense.
00:12:59
Speaker
You there can be all sorts of various different things, but having that conviction can limit your employment opportunities and actually end employment if you're in certain types of jobs.
00:13:12
Speaker
But with such a high percentage of people having some form of relationship with the criminal justice system, if you are someone who doesn't have a criminal record, the chances are that you probably do know someone who has a criminal record and are probably working alongside someone with a criminal record.
00:13:30
Speaker
but that criminal record would not have been disclosed during the application process. It is criminal record. We don't want them. There's always going to be someone else who's, who could take the place of somebody who has a criminal record. Yeah. And and what's interesting, Michael, is that I have a criminal record. You know, i got one at the age of 29, 30.
00:13:48
Speaker
Ooh. And, and it's interesting. i mean, I've never had to di disclose it with an employer, you know, as of yet. Um, But what's interesting is now going working with the justice system, it comes up because it's, you know, you have to get a DBS check, et cetera, et cetera. Yes.
00:14:05
Speaker
And we're trying to do some work with young offenders Institute. And they're actually saying, well, we're not sure that we should allow you into the system because of, you know, your criminal record. And it's like, well, that was 30 years ago.
00:14:19
Speaker
And it's so funny, you know, because when I do, when we run the programs that we do, You know, sometimes people say, it's right for you, Sid, you know, you haven't done such and such. And I say, well, actually, I have got a criminal record and I have done this. And they go, OK, so you do understand the system. And I said, well, sort ah of, yeah.
00:14:37
Speaker
You know, and ah and it and it's it's like this happened 30 years ago. You know, I've paid the fine. I did all the things that I had to do. But it's still something that bears out 30 odd years later. So it's really tough.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah. Let's talk about solutions. Let's talk about the future and the way forward.
Reintegration Strategies
00:14:55
Speaker
So what sort of support do you think ex-offenders need in order to get into employment?
00:15:02
Speaker
I think for the work that we do, it's giving them that sense of belief, that sense of agency, sense of purpose, that just because they've done whatever they've done doesn't limit their lives. You know, they can progress into, you know, part-time, voluntary, full-time employment, you know, with some good providers, you know, like Network Rail or or many other organisations who are doing some great work with ex-offenders.
00:15:28
Speaker
But it's hard because... you know Yes, there are education systems in prison and you know out of prison, etc., etc. But for me, it comes down to that sense of agency, that sense of worth, that sense of purpose. If that's lacking, which it is, you know in many of the prisoners that we work with the many of the ex-offenders, it's very difficult to then move into a mindset of, oh, yeah, i'm going to get employment, etc., etc.
00:15:54
Speaker
And the fact that many of them, i mean, you know high percentage of you know ex-offenders are male, a high percentage of them don't, haven't had a decent role, a you know, male role model in their lives.
00:16:07
Speaker
Many of them have got kids, you know, they're from, you know, strange families, et cetera, et cetera. So it's very difficult for them to build that sense of purpose. So that's something that we work with. It's like, well, okay,
00:16:19
Speaker
Where does my thinking come from and how might I change that thinking in order to change my behaviours and actions as well? Are we meaning that crime is the result of people having negative negative impressions of themselves? So I'm worthless, therefore I should do this.
00:16:39
Speaker
And it doesn't matter. It's what people expect of me because I'm worthless. Whereas is someone who's been successful in the education system has a ah conventional family life is less likely. I'm not saying that they won't commit crime.
00:16:54
Speaker
I'm saying they're less likely to get involved with the criminal justice system. Great saying, isn't it? The apple never falls too far from the tree. And, you know, when you look at the statistics about children who have come from a family that has had a relative gone to prison,
00:17:11
Speaker
You know, it's it's something like a 40% chance of them also ending up in prison, you know, our our environment. mean, there's a guy called Dr. Gabel Mate, who talks about the opposite of connection is addiction.
00:17:23
Speaker
We know that guy called Dr. Joe Dispenza. And he says that our biography is our biology. And it's so true, the environment that we keep and that we're in, whether it's physical, you know spiritual or psychological, how we grow up is how we become influenced. And I spoke to a lad last year yeah and and he was ah he's a good lad.
00:17:44
Speaker
He's in his twenties from the Birmingham area. And I said to him, how many of your friends from when you were growing up are still alive. And he said, maybe 20%.
00:17:56
Speaker
I said, what's happened to the rest of them? said, they've all been killed through gangs or drugs or the rest of it. And he said that obviously, I mean, he's serving a fairly lengthy sentence. And he said, Sid, that's the world that I lived in. He said, there was no alternative. And he said, you know, I was released, this is a few years ago,
00:18:13
Speaker
And he said, they basically moved me to a different postcode. He said, I didn't know anyone. I had no family connections. He said, how was I meant to survive? He said, I went back to the things that I knew of how I could get money, you know, and find that sense of belonging. And for many of them, it is that sense of joining a gang or being part of a gang becomes their family.
00:18:34
Speaker
That's identity. That's belonging. That's connection. So if an employer...
Role of Employers
00:18:40
Speaker
was to recruit somebody who is a ah former offender.
00:18:45
Speaker
Are you saying that we need to create for those people, just as for every other employee, a sense of belonging within the organizations that they work? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely.
00:18:56
Speaker
So how does this whole sort of process work? Because let's assume for a moment, we've got a young chap who's leaving prison or is in is in prison at the moment.
00:19:08
Speaker
and gets involved with the ME program. What sort of experience are they going to have within the ME program? One of the courses that we've been running last year and this year is called Counting on Confidence. And it's linked with Rishi Sunak's idea couple of years ago, which is around numeracy.
00:19:25
Speaker
When you look at education attainment results in prisons and with ex-prisoners and all the rest of it, it's really low. i mean, it really is. i mean i mean, many prisoners that we come across, ex-offenders that we come across, struggle with reading and writing and numeracy, et cetera, et cetera. So we came up with this program called Counting on Confidence.
00:19:43
Speaker
which is disguised, well it's not disguised, I mean, it's all around learning and it's around learning about numbers and letters and all that kind of good stuff, but it's done in a really creative way that turns that gene on to actually learning is really good. So when you look at, you know, 40 50% of them hated school,
00:20:00
Speaker
When you then explain and they're involved in a program which is actually encouraging them to embrace numeracy and literacy and learning and education, they kind of go, this is really exciting. And then you say, well, OK, there are colleges, you know, there are education, you know, establishments within prisons, et cetera, et cetera.
00:20:19
Speaker
that can then help you develop with numeracy and literacy and get, you know, certificates or whatever it is that they want to achieve. That is really important. And then link that with with employers who are looking for people who've got that mindset of, well, I want to better myself. I want to, you know, belong to something and kind of develop a career, not just a job, you know, do something that's got sort of purpose. It makes a huge amount of difference.
00:20:45
Speaker
So there's a difference between employment, just having a job, and having a career. Regardless of what job it is that you do, you don't need to be wearing a collar and a tie to have a career. You'll be doing any type of work.
00:21:01
Speaker
But rather than just, I attend, i do the work I'm told to do, think part of the belonging that employers need to create across the board, but especially with people who have this unconventional history and negative associations, gangs, or all these sorts of things, broken families, gangs, etc.,
00:21:21
Speaker
The employer will be more successful with that person if they have something which creates some sort of community within the workplace. Yeah, I mean, there's there's an organisation called Exo Bikes down in London area, and they're doing some amazing work in a number of prisons where they're actually training prisoners to become bike mechanics.
Exo Bikes Case Study
00:21:44
Speaker
They've also got bike shops on the outside where they can then become employed. But the thing that I love about what Steph Jones is doing at XO Bikes is he's creating a community of people that are working together that is supportive.
00:21:56
Speaker
For many people, when they leave prison, that's it. Got to go back to whatever it is. There's not a huge amount of support. Then you join an organization and you're given them a job and you know there's going to be a stigma attached to what you've done if they find out.
00:22:11
Speaker
And it's not a supportive environment. It's really, really difficult. And I think people like, so bikes and lots of other organisations doing some great work, give people that sense of belonging.
00:22:23
Speaker
And that's so important. Yeah. So that's where you've got a specific employer who's decided this is where we're going to find our workforce. and There are other, some quite big names who are very open about the fact that they are very supportive of ex-offenders and finding ways to work help them get into employment.
00:22:44
Speaker
Although some of them, I understand, can be quite strict about their selection criteria. Yeah, I mean, you've got people like Timpsons. I mean, they're doing great work. Marston's, you know, there's a few breweries. mean, I mentioned Network Rail, they're doing some great work.
00:22:57
Speaker
But part of the reason why we run the courses that we do, especially the counting on confidence thing, is that like any device, isn't it? If the operating system that you've got in that device is glitchy, it's not going to perform as we would want it to.
00:23:11
Speaker
It's the same with the human being. And for me, our courses help the people who attend look at their operating system and go, okay, so I've been doing this. i mean, there was a this was years ago. There was a chap in prison, Scott, an amazing guy. And, you know, it was a four day course. And for a few days, was very quiet. And then we got onto talking about his time, not childhood and his timeline, all that kind of stuff.
00:23:36
Speaker
And he said, when I was at school, he said, they basically said, you're a wrong one. You're just going to have a life of crime. And he was very creative So he basically, because his teacher said to him, me there's there's no future in drawing and all that kind of stuff, so forget it.
00:23:50
Speaker
So basically, he left school, basically excluded from school at the age of 14, got into gangs, etc, etc. And then there was an armed robber, you know, etc, etc. And then on this course, he just sat there and he went, you're right.
00:24:04
Speaker
I can do something about this. It's my thinking that needs to change, nothing else. And literally from that day, I think the the next day became a mentor, you know, helps other people, is now a coach, because he realised that he can control And understand his thinking. It's that whole thing about emotional intelligence, isn't it? That self-awareness, self-regulation.
00:24:25
Speaker
Yes. That's what changes. And once they change that, they realize that they can change those cycles, those patterns of behavior. It doesn't have to be externally done. It can be done from the person themselves. The chances of things being changed by an external force, would suspect, are fairly low. that You have to get the person to do it themselves. You can put all sorts of opportunities in front of people, but like the horse, you can take the horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Brilliant.
00:24:52
Speaker
There has to be a time when somebody realizes that life can be better. You can have a lie-in without wondering about the knock on the door and create something better. From your perspective, what does the future look like for people who have experience of the criminal justice system in terms of getting out of the criminal justice system? What does the future look like for them? It has to be in collaboration and there is some great work being done by various organisations. There are St.
00:25:19
Speaker
Giles Trusts, all those brilliant, brilliant organisations, you know, creating that awareness. And I think it has to be in collaboration. I mean, I always say that you said one in six people, or was it 20% of the population the UK, or whatever it is, has got some kind of criminal record or the rest of it.
00:25:36
Speaker
This problem is down to all of us. We can't just give it to the probation service or give it to the prison service and say, you know, let's sort this out because
Collaborative Efforts for Change
00:25:45
Speaker
it's not working. I mean, if, if prisons worked when however many hundreds of years that they were invented or created,
00:25:51
Speaker
We wouldn't have any people in prisons. But, you know, the prison population is rising. we We saw the crisis last year. So we have to find a different way. We have to think differently about it. And it has to be collaborative.
00:26:03
Speaker
You know, we have to work with organisations. I think it's something like over 50 percent of companies would not consider employing somebody who's got a criminal record. Hang on a minute. Why not?
00:26:14
Speaker
You know, when we do some this test, it's called the Carol Dweck mindset test. I think it's like 20 questions, you know, growth or fixed mindset. and We know with the growth mindset, everything is possible. Learning, education, et cetera. Fixed mindset. No, i'll never change.
00:26:28
Speaker
Now, we found that the highest indexing or results from that mindset quiz are in prison. They are incredibly entrepreneurial. They have to be because they have to survive.
00:26:41
Speaker
And when you realise that that untapped potential, I mean, we've set up enterprise clubs in prisons to help people with numeracy and thinking about accountancy and all that kind of good stuff.
00:26:51
Speaker
When you think of all of that untapped potential, it's huge. It really is. So it has to we have to work together as a society to go, well, OK, how do we make this better? We have to do work in schools to create the awareness about prisons and the life of crime.
00:27:05
Speaker
We have to work in further education. We have to promote learning and education as a way out of this problem. We have to promote that in prisons and we have to promote that as organizations to embrace it and say, this is down to all of us. Yes, it's a good, I agree with you.
00:27:21
Speaker
It is down to all of us to prevent it in the first place and then to also create the solution when everything that we've done to try and prevent it hasn't worked. We then have to try and work together to create the solution as well.
00:27:34
Speaker
But, Today, Sid, it's been enlightening. I've really enjoyed it. I've learned lot. um Thank you very much for like helping me make such an interesting episode of The Independent Minds. Thank you.
00:27:45
Speaker
Thank you, Michael. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Sid Madge, from the ME program, spelt with three letter E's.
00:27:59
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:28:28
Speaker
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00:28:40
Speaker
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00:28:52
Speaker
Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.