Royal accolade for Suffolk founder of Coracle prison laptops

James Tweed - who was brought up in Boxford and became a ship broker chartering oil tankers - was struck by the similarities between life on board ships and life in prisons.

Both are cut off from the internet - denying them the many benefits it can bring - including e-learning.

James decided to create an e-education - or "EdTech" - venture - bringing secure laptops into prisons so that inmates can learn while acquainting themselves with the new digital technology they will need to master to survive on the outside.

Partners include The Open University, the Prison Education Trust and the Shannon Trust.

The business started out providing a similar service on board ships. Maritime workers are effectively cut off from the outside world and the internet but crews still want access to training and other services which land-based operations take for granted.

James first walked into a maximum security prison in 2017 - and began by piloting his concept at Warren Hill, Whitemoor prison in Peterborough and Grendon in Buckinghamshire. 

His venture - Coracle - which was founded in Suffolk - is now in 86 of England and Wales' 120-odd prisons - including Hollesley Bay and Highpoint near Haverhill.

The company - which moved to Cambridge this year after its Newmarket lease expired - employs 28 people and is recruiting for more. It hopes to expand into the remaining UK prisons - and to take the technology to other facilities globally.

Last month, James visited Buckingham Palace to receive a King's Award for Promoting Opportunity - and got to tell King Charles about his extraordinary entrepreneurial journey.

His was one of five businesses in Suffolk to scoop the award back in April - and the first ever in the county to achieve the royal accolade in the Promoting Opportunity through Social Mobility category.

The Awards for Enterprise have been going since 1965 when they were started by the late Queen Elizabeth II.

"Historically we were - and still do - provide e-learning to the shipping industry,"  explained James.

"The one thing about being in the middle of an ocean was there wasn't much internet - ie none. We developed a way of working offline."

James studied maritime business and marine law at Plymouth. Later, he was researching for his masters in psychology in Cambridge.

He decided to entitle his thesis "The role of education on prisoners’ mindsets and rehabilitation" - and focused on digital access among other things. 

"I was thinking what other groups of people don't have access to the internet and I hit upon prisoners," he explained.

His thesis suggested that despite a number of education related initiatives, the challenge of reducing reoffending has not been met in the UK.

The research considered "the concept of the role of education on prisoners’ mindset and rehabilitation with the aim of analysing the benefits of, barriers to, and general challenges surrounding the service". 

His mission to bring digital skills to prisons was further fired by what he found when he visited them.

Case studies suggest that access to digital learning has helped many ex-prisoners stay crime-free - but Coracle is working with a couple of universities on data-gathering to understand better how effective the laptops are.

"A hundred per cent without a shadow of a doubt I think it works. The most powerful thing when you go to prison is you lose your liberty," he said.

Everything in prison is highly regimented, but the laptops give inmates control of something, he said. "That and the access of education literally transforms people before your eyes."

With prisons overcrowded, many are still spending 23 hours a day in cells - with very little mental stimulation.

"We have basically got one laptop for every 34 prisoners at the moment so there's a big challenge to get more," he said.

Now he would also like to extend the scope of the business to include ex-offenders - and deprived coastal communities where there are big problems with access to the digital economy.

The idea is that digital access will prevent re-offending and help prisoners to cope better when they are released.

"I have got staff that go into prison every week around the country," he said.

"We are actually very cheap compared to the alternatives but it still relies on money to be spent. 

"We have got to keep making the arguments - and that what we are doing will make a difference."

He is now working with Suffolk High Sheriff Mark Pendlington to try to persuade employers  to give a work interview to ex-prisoners.

He would like business sponsorship for helping train ex-offenders coming out of the system and is looking at how businesses could donate old laptops to help with their digital training.   

"It's a broken system in many ways," he said. "They (prisons) are just utterly depressing places. They (prisoners) are bottom of the pile for public funding, bottom of the pile for public opinion and yet they are over-populated."