Opening in February 2017, Wrexham Prison is already recruiting and offering graduate programs in diverse fields.
The 65-acre prison with 2,106 offenders is a vast project. It requires all kinds of workers from builders, to nurses, to designers, to ecologists, to archeologists… a truly exciting opportunity for Bangor university students.
“We want to create a community inside the prison”, says Simon Caron, project director of Lendlease, the company in charge of the construction, “and we have got a whole industry behind it, with locals representing 77% of the employees on site”.
For design and technology students interested in work in a prison, he insists on modern equipment: “We work with drones, 3D designs, time-lapse cameras…”
Another recruiter is the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), offering about 1,000 jobs to people who will be working on site after the construction.
Wrexham prison will be category C, meaning that it aims to rehabilitate and enable offenders to reintegrate into society gradually.
The profile of the future prison officer is that of a person willing to help prisoners achieve a positive image of themselves. As Karen Mulliner, Senior HR Business Partner for the NOMS, explains: “If you call someone ‘bad’ they will end up believing they are”. The prison staff must be “rehabilitative” and convey “a message of hope”, she adds.
“Being a prison officer is not just about locking a door after someone, in some cases you have to teach them how to read…” – Karen Mulliner, Senior HR for the National Offender Management Service.
For students who may not want to work in Wrexham prison but still want to be part of the rehabilitation process, there will be possibilities for volunteering and visiting the “learning and ambition academy” present on site.
It is now possible to apply for 2016 Lendlease graduate program on the internet: http://www.lendlease.com/worldwide/careers/graduate-program/ .
There are also prison officers recruitment currently ongoing : www.nomscareers.com .
