The Hull initiative, instead of giving people their full punishment, provides them with free training, guaranteed employment in a range of social enterprises and a share in the companies profits. This cuts out all the tedious rigmarole of choosing a career, training for it, working day and night in a dead end job to pay for the training, searching job-sites and local papers for jobs, applying for them and turning up for interview after interview only to have your dreams destroyed and your self esteem shattered before finally, finally, landing a job that isn't really what you were after but is still, possibly, a very small step on the ladder.
'We weren't sure if it would work but rates of reoffending have decreased markedly,' stated the project's director, 'it turns out that making life really bloody easy for people decreases their chance of bothering to commit a crime. Who'd have thought it?'
