PACE is a voluntary sector agency that works in the community with people with a wide range of criminal convictions and with a history of imprisonment. We provide a range of services including supported accommodation, training and education programmes and a social enterprise for people leaving prison. We work on a pre and post-release model for people serving long-term sentences.
Our social enterprise programme provides direct employment for people with a criminal record and involves the manufacture and distribution of a wide range of garden products. The PACE Social Enterprise is the highest profile social enterprise in the criminal justice sector. In addition, we run Prevention Services that consists of three different programmes for people who are considered to be at high risk of reoffending and who have a high level of support needs. The Prevention Services include the Safer Lives Treatment Programme, the Foothold Floating Support Service and the Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) programme. We also work with men and women who have received non-custodial sanctions for their offending behaviour.
In addition to their criminal record, the PACE clients experience difficulties with issues such as addiction, homelessness, mental health problems, integration and social exclusion. PACE undertakes a substantial amount of work to address the links between homelessness and crime and addiction and crime and has completed research on the experience of life sentence prisoners and an evaluation of our Prevention Service programmes. The work that PACE undertakes can be extremely challenging in terms of working with people who are making an important transition between prison and the community as well as working with those who have served multiple short sentences and have a very chaotic lifestyle associated with addiction and offending behaviour.
The role of the PACE Board of Management is an essential one to oversee the operational work of the organisation and to assist with the strategic development of PACE.
The aim of PACE is to assist people leaving prison and to aid their transition into the community and to support them to move away from an offending lifestyle and to live safely in the community and to prevent further harm.