Around 66,000 people leave prison in the UK every year. But figures show only 25% of men leave prison and go into some form of employment and the statistic for women is even lower at 20%. Having a job greatly reduces the likelihood of reoffending – and with the yearly cost of reoffending at £18 billion, getting this right could have a significant impact. The government’s recently published prison strategy white paper sets out a plan to get offenders into work – introducing a new job-matching service, pairing offenders up with vacancies in the community, and dedicated employment advisors within prisons to help offenders find work. Discussing this and more, we are joined by Darren Burns, National Recruitment Ambassador at Timpsons, and Kate Carr, Campaigns Manager at Business In The Community, who run the Ban the Box initiative. You’ll also hear Amanul Islam’s story, a Code4000 graduate. Code4000 trains prisoners in coding, and then supports them to get into long-term software development jobs.