Friends Of Guy Marsh
Crime wastes lives, harms others and costs us all: the average annual cost per prisoner in a UK Category C prison is £32,215 and the re-offending rate is high, with an estimated cost of between £9-£13 billion each year. We believe that by supporting the prison community near us, we can play a part in helping prisoners to return to a better, crime-free life on completion of their sentences.
In partnership with prison staff and other agencies, we work collaboratively and responsively to support prisoners, prison staff and prisoners’ families. Our projects are varied in scale and duration, some requiring significant financial expenditure, although it often only takes a well-targeted individual grant to set one person on his path towards effective rehabilitation and resettlement into society.
Aims and direction
To promote and support the rehabilitation and resettlement of prisoners who are or have previously been prisoners of Guys Marsh Prison and to support staff in their rehabilitative work.
Our main priority is to support the rehabilitation and eventual resettlement of the men. In line with this fundamental aim, we work to treat each man as an individual and to help him maintain his family relationships whilst he is at HMP Guys Marsh. FOGM strives to help each man to sustain his own family ties and to offer him rehabilitative courses so that he can become an independent citizen who belongs in the wider community when he is released.
Our organisation
Our Committee meets monthly to consider applications for funding and to report on and drive current initiatives. The committee, comprised of a number of trustees, is guided by members of the prison’s senior management team and the men themselves in order to inform and frame FOGM’s activities. We have vacancies for members prepared to take on active, but not too demanding, roles on our committee. Please contact us for further information.
Patrons
Mrs Anthony Pitt-Rivers CVO DL
Simon Hoare MP
Life Presidents
Derek Ross
Terry Francis
Current Officers
Giles Fearn – Chair
Annie Henschel – Secretary
Ann Davis-Penson – Treasurer