Members of Switchback’s EBE host London mayor Sadiq Kahn in the office for a roundtable, advocating for Reshape Release and the role of prison-leavers in local policy-making. Credit: Switchback.
Switchback’s Flip The Script campaign aimed to amplify the voice and experience of young men leaving prison, supporting them to tell their own stories and create lasting change.
The Campaign
Youth violence, reoffending, racial disparities in prison – these issues get lots of airtime. But we hardly ever hear from the people with the most vivid insights of all: young prison leavers themselves.
The campaign was co-created in partnership with Switchback’s Experts by Experience Board. Launched in 2017, this group of current and former Switchback Trainees (programme participants) meet regularly and ensure that all of Switchback’s influencing activity is rooted in the real lives and experiences of those who understand the impact of the system best.
The Board told Switchback they often found telling their stories of crime and redemption to be exploitative and sometimes retraumatising, so Switchback listened. The decision was made to tell their stories as young Londoners instead, generating media on their passions, hobbies, talents and humour. This would encourage supporters to see them as more human, as opposed to just ‘ex-offenders’.
Switchback Head of Influencing
The Change
In 2024, Switchback supported young men with media training and content creation. 81 pieces of co-created digital content was published, reaching thousands of supporters. They supported 10 young men to speak in national news using our bespoke storytelling consent process that was taught to over 80 different criminal justice institutions.
The Board told Switchback they wanted to speak to broader audiences, including those not usually sympathetic to prison leavers. In October, to coincide with The Government action on early prison release, Switchback worked with The Times, producing three print and digital pieces. A video published on their YouTube Channel to 991k subscribers, co created with EBE, told the story of ‘a day in the life’, it was nuanced and introspective and was watched by 22 thousand people.
Media success is evaluated by the men too, using Switchback’s bespoke collaborative evaluation methodology. This puts power back in the men’s hands throughout the process. Switchback asks each spokesperson they work with to evaluate their experience, and they rated their experience with The Times as 9/10. “I feel like I built a strong rapport with the journalist. The conversation felt relaxed and not rushed… easy to talk to.”
The Future
The campaign not only aims to increase representation, and change perceptions but also to build power and capacity: supporting Switchback Trainees to tell their own stories as spokespeople in the media and through creative content, importantly it aims to support prison leavers to be agents of the massive social changes needed in the UK to break down long-standing injustices.
