The Dusty Knuckle in Dalston works in partnership with the charity Switchback
Prison Leavers Working at the Dusty Knuckle
After going to prison in 2018, Tashan feared, like many other young men leaving the criminal justice system, that he’d struggle to find employers willing to look past his conviction.
Fast forward seven years and he’s now a mentor at the charity Switchback, helping other prison leavers find meaningful work to rebuild their lives. What was crucial for him was simply being given a chance. After working at a restaurant in Shoreditch thanks to a mentor from Switchback, he went on to work for the charity himself in 2022.
Now he supports Londoners into work at places like the Dusty Knuckle bakery in Dalston, which works in partnership with Switchback.
Tashan told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “It’s just a place where you can be yourself. You can see different types of people and you can learn and develop worth ethic.
“There’s a lot of talent and there’s a lot of people that have been misunderstood while they’re behind bars; there are a lot good people inside as well. So being able to give them a second chance – a lot of people are inside because of the environment they grew up in.
“They felt like they had no other options. If you give them a chance and give them the right encouragement, the right path, I’m sure the majority of them will take it.”
The East London bakery offers over 20 traineeships every year to prison leavers and has been hailed as an example of how ex-offenders in the capital can be supported in rebuilding their lives. It’s offering opportunities in a city some people suggest is failing to realise the potential of ex-offenders in boosting the economy.
READ MORE: Inside the East London bakery changing lives by employing prison leavers
Around a sixth of ex-offenders in London – 17.1 per cent – are employed within six weeks of release from custody, rising to 27.9 per cent after six months. This is lower than the national average of 19.3 per cent and 31.1 per cent respectively.
Earlier this month the London Assembly Economy, Culture and Skills Committee (LACSC) heard from major employers that a lack of employer education, negative stereotypes and soaring costs of accommodation were all major factors in the capital’s underperformance.
Switchback and the Dusty Knuckle are trying to reverse that trend, one trainee at a time. The LDRS joined the LACSC at the bakery as they investigated the types of support that prison leavers in London need.
Committee Chair Hina Bokhari told the LDRS: “There’s been so many stereotypes and misconceptions about prison leavers. This investigation will hopefully dispel some of those myths – the key word from this experience – talking to everyone here at the Dusty Knuckle, talking to every one at Switchback, talking to the people with lived experience who’ve left prison – is that you actually need to care for them, that we actually need to think about these people as people who need to be looked after, who are victims in some ways.
“They’re crying out for that help. We’ve learned a lot about the need to support prison leavers and also to take advantage of the fact that they come with great experience, a wealth of talent. And a lot of them are just fantastic people.
“London has a unique challenge for particularly people who are leaving prison in this area – housing is always going to be a massive issue for anyone leaving prison. There are so many prison leavers who are literally homeless when they actually leave.”
With many employers still unwilling to take a chance on prison leavers, specialist training programmes are sometimes the only option. Switchback works with prison leavers, nearly half of whom have never worked before, to start training at partner businesses like the Dusty Knuckle.
CEO Sian Williams told the LDRS: “Getting into work and having sustainable employment is an essential part of staying out of prison.
“There are so many challenges that people leaving prison are facing – they’re leaving a very structured, controlled, regulated environment in which they have no agency or autonomy, and yet we’re asking the men to live in a very chaotic city, find their way around, find expensive housing, and be able to manage getting back into work.
“So when an employer thinks about taking on someone leaving prison, they actually need support in managing all of those barriers.”
‘We help them build the skills’
Switchback aims to assign a mentor to someone around three months before they leave prison to ensure a smoother transition to the outside world.
“Once they’re through the gate into the community, we’ll help them through everything from finding housing, building a good relationship with their probation officer, getting a bank account, getting a travelcard, and then finding their way here to the Dusty Knuckle, where they learn about the options and the opportunities for work,” Ms Williams said.
“Once they start work, we’ll be alongside them, making sure that, whatever challenges they face, we help them build the skills, the confidence, the knowledge to overcome those barriers so that they can maintain a job. And then as they graduate from the Dusty Knuckle program, we’ll help them find their next job and their next opportunity.”
‘It’s really important Londoners know’
Green Party Leader and London Assembly Member Zack Polanski said the experience showed the need for wider prison reform in London and beyond. He told the LDRS: “We have overcrowded prisons and we are putting far too many people in prison for crimes that they just shouldn’t be in prison for.
“We know there are lots of other ways as well, of rehabilitating people, such as giving people community service. This is a really good example that actually if you give people the tools, the resources, the confidence, and the peer-to-peer support to be able to empower people to live their lives, you start to see people really flourish.
“We don’t hear about these amazing things because they might be things in hospitality, for instance, an industry that far too often is not recognised for how important it is for our economy and also how important it is for the people who both use it and the people that are served by it.
“The Mayor of London could be amplifying the work much more, talking about this work, because I think it’s really important Londoners know this is going on.”
He said supporting social enterprises like the Dusty Knuckle, where profit is not the priority, would ensure that prison leavers can get support for businesses who “put the human experience at the forefront” of their ethos.
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