In the UK today, 44% of adult prisoners are reconvicted within a year of their release and this statistic rises to 59% for those serving sentences of less than 12 months. This reoffending rate costs the UK taxpayer £15 billion per year.

Unlocked Graduates aims to change this by attracting high calibre graduates from top universities to work as frontline prison officers for two years and challenging them to inject new ideas into the prison service that reduce reoffending. We are currently incubated by the youth justice charity Catch22.

We have placed 150 prison officers in 14 prisons in London and the South East across both adult and youth estate. They work in almost 15 per cent of all prisons in England. Next summer our third cohort of officers will join the programme and we will launch our second region in the North West.

We believe our prison officers can be the agents of change in a prisoners life but to truly change the prison service we need your support. You can help us achieve an independent voice, increase innovation and give our prison officers the opportunity to pilot bold ideas that can create lasting change for prisoners.