Social Impacts and Community Projects
The public sector Prison Service recognises that the actions and targets it has set for biodiversity can only be achieved through active support from its staff, its central partnership and local partners. By encouraging staff and prisoner involvement in all aspects of biodiversity within its estate, and through local community projects, the Service can broaden its sustainable development social impacts agenda.
The Prison Service believes that all members of society should have access to green space and the natural world for enjoyment, education and wellbeing. Nature’s biological diversity remains a source of constant enjoyment in people’s lives. The Prison Service aims to build upon its past successes in this field to help form and bond closer links with offenders and those that work in the local community promoting and protecting biodiversity. Forming new partnerships and locally driven initiatives will aid us in the delivery of our Biodiversity Action Plan and in addressing other important social issues.
We consider that through active management of our designated and biodiversity significant sites our natural green spaces can improve the wellbeing of each of us as individuals. As we work alongside such partners as English Nature and the Wildlife Trusts we can demonstrate how biological diversity can benefit not just staff, but also prisoners in providing transferable job skills.
As part of our PSBAP we have endeavoured to address positively our social impacts as we are aware of their importance to both people and wildlife. The following actions may help us drive this aspect of our work forward:
to create opportunities for individual offenders and community engagement with nature and wildlife in both rural, urban and inner city environments;
subject to operational needs, to make access available to our estate, where practicable, to a wide audience;
to broaden the opportunities for nature conservation and wildlife protection by developing activities that are enjoyable and inclusive for both staff and prisoners alike;
to maximise opportunities for people who help us through voluntary effort to develop personal skills and expertise; and
to enable staff and prisoners to explore and improve the sustainability of their everyday life choices and how they impact on biodiversity and the outside community.
Some of our rural prisons have rights of way through them and we endeavour to keep these managed and maintained with biodiversity in mind.
Encouraging local groups and communities to work with prisons and prisoners not only supports those communities and community projects, but encourages work towards Restorative Justice.
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