Majid Ahmed wins battle to go to medical school
Inside’n’ Out Magazine covered the story of Majid Ahmed rejection by Imperial College after declaring a spent conviction for a small part in a burglary when he was aged 16. Read the original article
Now the straight-A student has been granted a place at Manchester University School of Medicine in September after a year-long battle of appeals against Imperial College and the university.
The General Medical Council has confirmed that people can still become doctors if they have a criminal record. Doctors have to fill in a declaration of fitness to practise as part of their application for provisional registration. A candidate could be barred if they were thought to pose a risk, but evidence including references would be considered.
Ahmed estimated that he had spent 200 hours scouring university appeals procedures, writing letters and talking to MPs to overturn his rejection.
He said: “If someone really wants to move on from their life and move away from their past they can. Some people will try to prevent them from achieving their dreams but they must find a way to ignore this.”
Inside ‘n’ Out Magazine congratulates Majid Ahmed and commends his determination and attitude.
Read the full Guardian article
What hope for prisoner rehabilitation?
Prison is meant to rehabilitate. Eric Allison writes on prisons and criminal justice in the Guardian’s Joe Public blog, on questions of mistreatment of officers by other officers and asks what hope there is for prisoners in such an environment. – 9th April 2008.
Comments included:
“Nobody takes real responsibility for rehabilitation; it’s against the spirit of our punitive times. Lip-service only is paid to it. Probation was long ago converted to an organisation devoted to ‘managing’ offenders (public protection) or dispensing community punishment. Prison governors always, and I mean always, have security as their number one priority. And so there is no real advocacy for rehabilitation. What is needed is effective case work on behalf of individual prisoners to assist rehabilitation. Offender behaviour programmes, education, resettlement initiatives and the rest are delivered piecemeal. There are some successes, but in general prisons do containment and punishment reasonably well, but not rehab. Which, in the end, produces negative and demoralising effects on prisoners and staff alike.
To introduce a proper rehabilitative regime in prisons and on release will take political vision and courage. It ain’t there”
and …
“Not using the opportunity prison provides to do something positive is one of the most mystifying state failures. Here you have criminals, both career and nascent, gathered together, under government control, 24 hours a day. And what do we do with them? Educate them? Teach them skills that could lead to jobs in the outside world? Give them serious and continued help to get off drugs?
Nope, we just lock them up for hours on end, and pay thousands for the privilege. Bonkers, absolutely bonkers.”