Bearing in mind that Somalis comprise the largest BME group in Feltham YOI, the story below has serious implications:
Project Daedalus
Why Daedalus? Daedalus was a skilful architect and craftsman who built the labyrinth for the Ancient Greek King Minos that was used to imprison the mythical Minotaur. As builder of the labyrinth, only Daedalus knew the route out.
Daedalus is being delivered through a partnership of the Greater London Authority, the London Development Agency, the Youth Justice Board, National Offender Management Service and borough councils. The London Criminal Justice Partnership coordinates the work of the agencies.
To put Daedalus into effect, a separate unit has been set up at Feltham Young Offenders Institution for young people from the six Diamond District boroughs: Croydon, Hackney, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham and Southwark. The unit provides an enhanced regime, with six additional prison officers, offering more structured activities and programmes to improve life skills and job readiness for young offenders. Young offenders on the Unit are able to gain work experience with local employers on day release, which is a first at Feltham YOI. The Mayor, along with Jack Straw MP, officially opened the unit on 5 November 2009.
Resettlement brokers have been appointed to work directly with the young people to support them towards their education, employment and training goals as well as offering pastoral support before and after release. Funded by the London Development Agency, the resettlement brokers work closely with youth offending teams and local authorities to ensure seamless resettlement and reduced re-offending rates.
To date 43 young people have been placed in the unit, with 24 of these released into the community. Though it is too early draw any firm conclusions on the success of the unit, initial signs have been very positive with security incidents in the unit being 90% lower than other units in Feltham, and for so far no boys have re-offended since release.
Under Project Daedalus we have developed a new approach for supporting motivated young people in custody. The project aims to break the cycle of youth re-offending (78 per cent re-offend within two years of release) by delivering intensive support, which begins inside custody and continues beyond the prison gate upon release into the community to improve the chances of successful resettlement.
Daedalus is being delivered through a partnership of the Greater London Authority, the London Development Agency, Youth Justice Board, National Offender Management Service and borough councils. The London Criminal Justice Partnership coordinates the work of the agencies.
To put Daedalus into effect, a separate unit has been set up at Feltham Young Offenders Institution for young people from the six Diamond District boroughs: Croydon, Hackney, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham and Southwark. The unit provides an enhanced regime, with six additional prison officers, offering more structured activities and programmes to improve life skills and job readiness for young offenders. Young offenders on the Unit are able to gain work experience with local employers on day release, which is a first at Feltham YOI. The Mayor, along with Jack Straw MP, officially opened the unit on 5 November 2009.
Resettlement brokers have been appointed to work directly with the young people to support them towards their education, employment and training goals as well as offering pastoral support before and after release. Funded by the London Development Agency, the resettlement brokers work closely with youth offending teams and local authorities to ensure seamless resettlement and reduced re-offending rates.
To date 43 young people have been placed in the unit, with 24 of these released into the community. Though it is too early draw any firm conclusions on the success of the unit, initial signs have been very positive with security incidents in the unit being 90% lower than other units in Feltham, and for so far no boys have re-offended since release.
I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.
There is something here for those who consider that simply by integrating with the mainstream, by coming in from the periphery into the centre, that one can be accepted. There is no respect due in the absence of recognition. The hallmarks of civilisation, summed up succinctly by Fanon, need to be clearly defined and realised in order for peoples to engage with one another on a level playing field. For example, the video below shows the London Somali Youth Forum representatives [who are engaged in the Ban the Khat agenda] handing over a petition to the Deputy Mayor of London in City Hall, announcing that over 70,000 signatories have requested that the herbal remedy is banned by the authorities:
There is absolutely no consideration here about the implications of banning khat. There is nothing in the way of research about the socio-economic impact of such a policy, a fundamental part of assessing the risk involved in such an exercise. Khat here is seen as the primary area of concern for Somalis, the LSYF would have you believe that the ills of the community are underpinned by the chewing of leaf. It is in fact disingenuous to claim that banning khat would be anything other than a superficial show of conformity to the powers that be.
Fanon, when considering the post-colonial world for the native, is quoted to have said in this respect that:
This fight for democracy against the oppression of mankind will slowly leave the confusion of neo-liberal universalism to emerge, sometimes laboriously, as a claim to nationhood. It so happens that the unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give rise to tragic mishaps.
There is the danger, that when one pleases one's master that they enter into the realm of insignificance. Somalis are now seen as an existential threat in the UK, a potential fifth column within mainstream society. A strategy is required to address these concerns by the authorities. They look to co-opt those who offer their services and their loyalty for a price. Once this has taken place, once these subjects engage in delivering the strategy, they soon become surplus to requirements.
With this in mind, let there not be a gap between the community's representatives and the body politic. This needs to be addressed urgently in order to alleviate the current plight of the Somali community in the UK.
