Prison Leavers Innovation Challenge (PLIC)

Prison Leavers Innovation Challenge - SBRI Competition

The Prison Leavers Innovation Challenge is part of the Prison Leavers Project, a new £20m innovation programme that aims to develop, test and pilot innovative methods to reduce crime and its impact on society.

The Innovation Challenge looks specifically at how suppliers can design and implement novel products, features and solutions to a variety of challenges in areas that can lead people to commit crime.

The Ministry of Justice as the authority intends to run a series of pilots for the development and testing of new technologies to the support available for people leaving prison, reducing the harms associated with crime.

Having conducted an extensive discovery phase to identify and prioritise areas of opportunity, we have designed specific challenges and requirements which will be advertised in early May.

The challenges will reflect a variety of opportunities within these four broad areas:

Health and Wellbeing – Effective management of health and wellbeing is proven to reduce a person’s likelihood of committing crime. We are therefore seeking solutions that aim to help prison leavers manage their development, goal setting, community inclusion, among other aspects of wellbeing.

Work and Skills – Building a positive, non-criminal identity, and having the right skills and access to work and education is key to keeping people from a cycle of crime. We are therefore seeking solutions that support the re-education and upskilling of people leaving prison. Solutions may also focus on upskilling prison and probation staff on specific issues related to prison leaver rehabilitation.

Communities and Relationships – Building new, pro-social community ties stops prison leavers engaging with old criminal networks after release, risking a relapse to criminal activity. We are therefore seeking solutions helping to connect prison leavers to their families and community in the spirit of rehabilitation and the reduction of crime.

Day of Release – Prison leavers’ engagement with key organisations on their day of release builds ongoing relationships with services that steer them away from returning to crime. We are therefore seeking solutions helping to coordinate prison leavers’ interaction with numerous services on day of release, including through communication with probation services, other Government services and support groups. Solutions may also focus on enabling communities to better integrate the prison leaver during the initial hours and days of their release.

Solutions can be delivered in a variety of technological products, including but not limited to: digital platforms, mobile apps, desktop applications, SaaS platforms, tablet applications, B2B, VR & AR, social network, CyberSecurity Vault, Edtech platforms, location-based services and productivity tools.

These pilots will be run as a two-phase Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition and will be seeking novel technologies and approaches that are not currently available on the market. Additional information: Reg.31 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR2015) introduces the innovation partnership as a direct transposition of Art 31 of Directive 2014/24. www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/102/regula… ↗

This is a Small Business Research Initiative Challenge sponsored by the Ministry of Justice www.gov.uk/government/collectio… ↗