Airborne Initiative's vital role in battle against crime

FOR a long time I believed that those who commit serious crimes against their fellow citizens should simply be locked away and serve their term.

Today, while I still firmly believe that punishment must be meted out, I now also take the view that since it costs us taxpayers about 30,000 a year to hold someone in prison, every effort should be made to reduce the likelihood of their reoffending. Thus, prisoners who are illiterate must be taught to read and write, and those with limited skills need to have such skills as they do possess enhanced.

Two key experiences contributed to my change in attitude. First, together with the Labour MP Stephen Pound, I took part in a BBC2 series, At the Sharp End, in which we spent three days as prison officers at Dartmoor. Quite apart from the sense of power inherent in having in my pocket the keys to the jail, I was struck by the pointlessness of not using this time of enforced idleness to better effect.

Second, I had first-hand knowledge of Airborne Initiative. In 1993, having just lost my seat in Cannock, Staffordshire, I was selected as the Conservative candidate to succeed Julian Critchley in Aldershot, which I did in 1997. Aldershot, home of the British Army, was also home to the Parachute Regiment. A remarkable man, Alan Curtis, chairman of Lotus Cars, friend of the regiment and ultimate exponent of lateral thinking, hit on the idea of harnessing the skills of ex-Para corporals made redundant as a result of "Options for Change" to try to transform some of society’s worst young offenders.

Finding no interest from the Home Office in London, Curtis forged an unusual alliance between Strathclyde Regional Council, the Scottish Office and friends in business (including BAE Systems, whose HQ is in my constituency) to help him found the project. Between 1991 and 1994, he raised 400,000 and, appropriately, on the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day, 6 June, 1994, Airborne Initiative Scotland opened for business in a disused outward bound camp, just off the A74 at Abington.

I visited the day the first course "passed out" in August that year. I shall not forget talking to a young man who had spent about half his 20 years in care or prison. For the first time in his life he had found a purpose to his existence, a framework within which to live - and a job awaited, part of the reward for sticking the course. I am told he continues to hold down a job and is married with children.

The parents of another young man had not seen him for three years until they, too, attended the passing-out parade. That Christmas, the father sent a card enclosing a cheque made out to Airborne and the simple message: "Thank you for giving us back our son."

In 1997/98 I was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee which undertook an inquiry into alternatives to prison. At my suggestion, we included a visit to Airborne. We concluded that "the possible savings, in terms of reduced offending in the future and less crime, and when compared to prison, make such schemes worthwhile, if their effectiveness can be proven".

Airborne has proved it can reduce reoffending among some of Scotland’s hardest young criminals. Not only is that saving public money (just 20 men kept out of prison a year, and you have recovered the cost), but it is reducing the number of victims of criminality. Above all, as Ian Rankin powerfully argued here last week, for those young people whom life has failed, Airborne is their last chance.

Airborne helped to persuade me that rehabilitation has a vital role to play in our battle against crime. It is a unique partnership between the public and private sectors.

The Scotsman is right: "Axing Airborne is not only petty but wrong." I hope the Scottish Executive will be persuaded to think again.

• Gerald Howarth is MP for Aldershot and shadow defence minister.