'Housing for released prisoners is a major issue'

Prisoners being released into homelessness is a "dire" situation that is proving challenging to solve, a prison governor has admitted.

HMP Norwich governor Declan Moore said more than a dozen prisoners are released each month without having a definite home to live in.

Last year, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) reported that 25% of men who left the prison found themselves homeless, a figure above the national average of 16%.

"Housing and employment on release are the two biggest issues that face any prisoner if he is genuinely attempting to reform and not reoffend," Moore said.

"The housing situation is quite dire. We work very hard on it with the local authority and indeed here in Norfolk we do very well.

"That doesn't mean to say that everyone leaving every month has got a house, that's not true.

"There are probably a dozen or more every month that are leaving this prison and don't have a roof over their head — that's tragic."

The prison, which was built in the 1880s, held 746 inmates of categories B, C and D when it was last inspected by the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons in January.

The refurbishment of a previously derelict wing has just been completed, providing an additional 170 places, and will open to prisoners next month.

Moore said in the eight years he has served as governor, the prison has never been "totally full" despite coming "very close" last year when only three beds were left one evening.

The refurbishment work has taken four years and is part of a £50m investment in HMP Norwich over the past five years.

Moore said that the prison currently has about 30 prisoners who are doubled up in Victorian cells built to hold one person at a time.

"That has reduced overtime, and as our prison population is being driven down by sentencing reform then our objective is undoubtedly to have one person in one cell and never return to overcrowding," he said.

"I don't think we'll ever return to an open house where as many as the courts send the prisons service will accept through their doors.

"I think that was a situation that was very inhumane."

The Ministry of Justice said offenders at risk of homelessness upon release were eligible for up to 12 weeks of basic accommodation while they find a permanent home.

Previously, the IMB said the good work of reducing reoffending at HMP Norwich was "undermined by the lack of available accommodation for men on release".

Social justice charity Nacro said people were twice as likely to commit further offences if they were homeless when being released from prison.

Moore said HMP Norwich does its best to break the "consistent return cycle" of some offenders and encourages prisoners towards rehabilitation to make them "a better man" upon leaving.

"The key is, we are dealing with people," he said. "There's nobody in my prison today that hasn't created a victim. There is nobody in my prison today that I can see doesn't deserve to be here. We have to treat them with decency."

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