Charles Young, arriving smartly dressed at his office in south London's Blackheath, is the epitome of respectability. He straightens the collar on his black leather coat, under which is a crisp white shirt. Young, who is fast becoming one of London's most well-known ex-offenders, finds it hard to take a compliment. "Christ, black coat and white shirt, I look like a screw," he says with a toothy laugh.
It has been 17 years since Young'slast stretch inside, six months in a single cell at Elmley prison in Kent. With over 40 convictions for robbery, fraud and burglary, he clocked up around 15 years behind bars between the ages of 19 and 40. Since his release, and inspired by a television programme he saw inside about an ex-con in Glasgow talking to schoolchildren about jail, Young has used his experiences of prison life to steer young people who may idealise and glamorise the criminal lifestyle towards a more fulfilling existence.
He conveys the brutality of prison life through presentations he takes to youth clubs, schools, colleges and, most recently, a naval college, during which an "inmate" sits locked in a mocked-up cell on a stage while Young hammers home what prison is really like. "Inmates" have included a former drug dealer, a vicar and a magistrate. Young shouts, uses raw language and doesn't pull any punches, and by the time his talk is over, some of the hardest-looking, most defiant kids look visibly shaken.
To see full article, click here:http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/26/charles-young-youth-offending-turning-tide?CMP=twt_gu
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