Community & Social Justice Education & Young People 2026
Unlocked Graduates

Transforming Prisons: Our 2025–2026 Impact Report

Unlocked Graduates recruits, trains and supports high-calibre graduates to work as prison officers in some of England and Wales's most challenging prisons, with the aim of breaking cycles of reoffending. Founded in 2017 and marking its tenth year in 2026, the programme has placed nearly 900 prison officers across 38 prisons, collectively reaching 140,000+ prisoners. Retention is 17 percentage points above the standard entry route. The 2025-26 impact report highlights the launch of Unlocked ChangeMakers (a middle leadership programme for custodial managers), publication of the Leading Prison Landings training manual, and independent economic analysis showing £59 in social savings per £1 invested. The programme was praised unanimously by the House of Lords Justice & Home Affairs Committee in 2025.

View Report
Report snapshot
43 Views

📋About

Two-year Leadership Development Programme recruiting, training and placing graduates as prison officers; Unlocked Ambassadors alumni network and Trailblazers peer mentoring programme; Unlocked ChangeMakers middle leadership development for custodial managers; Innovation Acceleration Programme (IAP) for frontline change projects; publication of Leading Prison Landings: The Unlocked Guide to Jailcraft; academically peer-reviewed research; annual conference and international knowledge exchange Custom geography from upload: England and Wales

📊Key Metrics

140,000+ prisoners reached by Unlocked participants and Ambassadors since 2017, across 38 prisons in England and Wales Key Metric 1
Retention for Unlocked participants is 17 percentage points higher than standard entry route after two years, with over 85% of the 2023 cohort still operational at programme end Key Metric 2
Independent analysis estimates £59 saved for society over five years for every £1 invested in the Unlocked Graduates programme Key Metric 3

✅Key Outcomes

  • 75% of all programme graduates continue to work towards breaking cycles of reoffending in their primary role, with nearly 40% promoted to a frontline leadership role — demonstrating sustained, career-long commitment to prison reform beyond the two-year programme
  • 95% of the first Unlocked ChangeMakers cohort of custodial managers reported improved ability to drive culture change, with 100% of direct reports noting improvement in team development and management — evidencing that the Unlocked model can be extended effectively beyond graduates to existing prison staff
  • Around 90% of participants had not considered a career in the prison service before hearing about Unlocked, with 100% of partner prison governors rating training and support as good or excellent — and the House of Lords Justice & Home Affairs Committee citing the programme unanimously in its 2025 'Better prisons: less crime' report

📍Geography

UK-Wide

Related reports

All Community & Social Justice reports →
2023 Enhanced
Missing People

Impact Report 2022-23

8,033 children, adults and families affected by a disappearance helped in 2022/23
Key Metric 1
35,064 TextSafe® messages sent to missing children and adults; 2,960 Suicide Risk TextSafe® messages to high-risk individuals
Key Metric 2
40% of Lost Contact tracing cases successfully resolved; 1,000+ multi-agency professionals trained
Key Metric 3
30th anniversary year: over 10 years and £10 million raised by players of People's Postcode Lottery for Missing People's services
Community & Social Justice Mental Health
View
2025 Enhanced
World YMCA

World YMCA Annual Report 2025

CHF 3 million+ total programme funding raised in 2025 — a record — with CHF 1.3 million redeployed directly to YMCA National Movements
Key Metric 1
2.5 million people reached through digital skilling initiatives via HP partnership across 30 YMCA partners since 2021
Key Metric 2
37,000 people directly reached per Community Wellbeing project (1.3 million indirectly); 85 new Change Agents enrolled from 44 countries
Key Metric 3
5,000 jobs to be created under Igniting Youth Futures (USD 5.2 million Accenture/Macquarie-funded); 750+ young people already reached at year-end
Community & Social Justice Global
View
2025 Enhanced
Allsorts Youth Project

Allsorts Youth Project Annual Report 2023–24

95 individual young people in under-16s groups; 85 in over-16s groups; 42 in Transformers (trans/non-binary); 114 young people supported through 385 one-to-one sessions
Key Metric 1
149 parents and carers supported across 44 online and in-person groups; 3,500+ participants in training and workshops across 97 sessions
Key Metric 2
96% of young people said Allsorts groups had been of help; 75% said coming to Allsorts improved their overall wellbeing
Key Metric 3
Won Investing in Children's Member of the Year Award for extensive youth voice integration; 100% of Summer Programme participants enjoyed activities
Community & Social Justice Youth Work
View