Economia: Promoting entrepreneurship in prisons could save £1.4bn a year and limit reoffending, study says


The Centre for Entrepreneurs’ From inmates to entrepreneurs report is covered in Economia.

The UK could save up to £1.4bn a year through reduced reoffending if it introduced more entrepreneurship programmes into the nation’s prisons, according to a new report by the Centre for Entrepreneurs (CFE)

The CFE’s Inmates to Entrepreneurs report recommends that the government create a prison entrepreneurship fund to support local programmes in prisons, suggesting that this could save up to £1.4bn annually due to reduced reoffending rates.

Reoffending by ex-prisoners currently costs the UK around £4.5bn a year with each reoffender costing the government and wider society £131,000, the study says.

CFE estimated that programmes encouraging prisoners to become entrepreneurs – which has fewer barriers to entry and suits the psychological make-up of many ex-prisoners – could reduce the reoffending rate from 46% nationally to around 14% among participants.

Read the full article here