Jogging with Jody

This new short documentary tells the story of the first year of one man's life after prison. Josh has served numerous prison sentences, the last of which was an 8 year sentence extended for public protection. He is registered as a priority prolific offender. The police advised his probation officer that she would probably recall him within 3 hours of release from prison. This is his story of the ups and downs of life after prison, how he started to work with a volunteer mentor, Jody, and how the trust they built helped him to be honest about his present and hopeful for his future. The second film is a commentary on the issues raised in the first by leading experts on desistance from crime.

The films have been used by professors teaching students about criminal justice, by mentoring organisations in mentor training, and to teach staff in Youth Offending Teams, Probation Trusts, and Prison Officers about desistance and the value of mentoring. They have also been used in magistrate and judges’ training and publicised to volunteers who work for the Independent Monitoring Board in prisons – but perhaps most importantly, they have been shown to prisoners who are hoping to make it once released, to help them understand that struggling with failure is part of securing success. Please use them from the website or contact Ruth on the details below if you would like files you can download.

The films were made by Ruth Armstrong and Kip Loades. Ruth is a researcher in the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge. The film is based on the findings of Ruth’s PhD, an ethnography of life after release from prison which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. You can find out more about her work here: http://www.crim.cam.ac.uk/people/acad...