A unique prison rehabilitation programme has established the UK’s first clothing brand created by young ex-offenders, as new data highlights the challenges that people with criminal convictions face in finding work.

• Project has helped young prison leavers to create clothing range launching at a pop-up store at Westfield Stratford, London
• Initiative has provided training and mentoring to help the group build skills to find long-term employment
• Project comes as new data from Cebr, commissioned by LinkedIn, estimates that just two in 10 prison leavers are able to find work in the first year of their release

A unique prison rehabilitation programme has established the UK’s first clothing brand created by young ex-offenders, as new data highlights the challenges that people with criminal convictions face in finding work. 

The initiative from social enterprise, Inside Out, and supported by LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, brought together recent prison leavers aged 18 to 27 years old. The group, who have all struggled to find employment, received training and mentoring as they look to secure career opportunities. The programme has helped the group to create and market the UK’s first clothing brand created, designed and hand produced by young ex-offenders. 

The group were taught technical skills, like screen printing and design, and were also supported to develop their business skills, like sales and marketing, and build essential soft skills – including teamwork and problem solving. They were also supported to build their professional profiles on LinkedIn, and learned about best practices on networking and applying for roles.   

The clothing range which consists of a thirteen-piece collection of branded hoodies, hats, T-shirts, facemasks and bags is available for purchase at pop-up store, ‘Blank Canvas’, located at Westfield Stratford, London, from 19th to 28th April. The initiative has been created by Inside Out founder Greg McKenzie in collaboration with Zack Fortag – who first met on LinkedIn – in partnership with LinkedIn.

The project launches as new data from Cebr (Centre for Economics and Business Research), commissioned by LinkedIn, estimates that just two in 10 prison leavers are able to find work in the first year of their release. The data also shows that the unemployment rate for ex-offenders is 89% six weeks after their release, with analysis by Cebr on prison leavers from 2020 forecasting that this only improves to 44% a year after their release.