Mr. Mark Johnson:

-----about the younger age group, and how to match people. I have been involved in mentoring. One of the first programmes I designed for the Prince's Trust in England has young offenders being mentored by ex-offenders. There is some matching to be done within that. My organisation is completely reflective of the community we aim to serve. Young people do young people's work, although not all the time. We have a very healthy mixture, which is the point. Young people are employed within the organisation - that is the seeing-is-believing bit. Often the charities that claim or aim to help this disadvantaged group do not contain any such people, yet if there is a young person to whom other young people can relate because of their experience and their facing some of the same challenges, when they see this person is employed and has a prospect of growing into the person he or she wants to be, that gives hope. I find that often it is the unspoken word that does the most. One could offer any short intervention to a young person but if it includes one ex-offender who has changed his life, to whom others can relate, it will have more effect than any other intervention. That is my experience.

As to the 85% against the 15%, I believe everybody has a potential to change and I absolutely stand by that. My belief is based on the axis that everybody has the potential to change if they have the capacity to get honest with themselves. Often what I have experienced in working with this group, especially the younger age group, is a delusion, that is not challenged, namely, that living a life of crime is successful. I believe that many of the young incarcerated people I have encountered live with this delusion. They spend whole sentences, either in the community or in prison, and their minds are completely unchallenged. That is the place I would start. In my own journey, I call it the "teachable" moment. We all have opportunities and it is through time and circumstance that we become teachable and open.

As a criminal justice system, it misses that whole journey.

I will give an example. A facial injuries surgeon in Glasgow told me that the teachable moment for them is in the hospital waiting room after a knife attack or the crime when somebody's adrenaline is gone, and they can communicate with people and get some form of honesty. That change process should take place at that point or the first night in prison when one can actually crack the delusion and speak to somebody and say: "Do you want this for the rest of your life?"