06/03/2026
Clive Hammond
Police Oracle caught up with Leroy Bonnick, Prison Governor and Head of Probation for the Isle of Man Prison, and Declan Crawley, Head of Community Resettlement & Rehabilitation at the facility, to look at how rehabilitation is offered to the site's population, which has nearly doubled in size since 2019.
For nearly four decades, Leroy Bonnick has immersed himself in a working prison life, immersing himself within facilities such as HMP Oakwood, HMP Lewes and HMYOI Werrington, after growing up in Dudley.
He joined his current role, based on the Isle of Man, almost 10 years ago, rising through the ranks within the public and private sectors to his current post as Prison Governor and Head of Probation, which has given him the platform to bring about various changes to the ever-changing facility at the north of the island in the village of Jurby.
Huge challenges come with overseeing a facility centred on an island that boasts a population of around 80,000 – a world away from his native Brum and the other larger facilities that could hold five or six times the number of prisoners as the Isle of Man Prison does.
The role of those inside the prison, and the detention centre itself, has “changed dramatically” in the years since Mr Bonnick joined it, and while many similar spaces in the UK do conduct forms of rehabilitation, a new approach to ensuring those leaving are employment ready, aided with credentials in a trade or skill that can help them reintegrate back into society.
He said: “That turns their attentions away from criminality. However, we need to look into the background of some of these people to learn what has led them to criminality… when I started back as an officer in 1990 in Brixton, we just locked them up – the whole rack them, stack them, sort of thing, and did little or nothing with them.
“That’s not me criticising the prison service back then – that’s how I saw it through my lens; the prison service as a whole now has changed, whether it’s England, Wales or here in the Isle of Man. We’ve got to look at why people are going to jail and what we can do to stop that revolving door.”
Typically, the support that is on offer can vary, particularly when it comes to a prison that currently holds between 138 and 155 prisoners – a figure that has risen significantly from around 80 back in 2017.
The main aim of Mr Bonnick and the services provided through teams led by Declan Crawley, Head of Community Resettlement & Rehabilitation at the prison, is to leave those entering the premises better equipped than when they leave.
It all comes under Mr Bonnick’s mantra of ensuring people always have hope in the fact that they can change, their lives will be different, and that back in society, that will be a chance for them to reintegrate into their communities, and not be labelled a criminal.
“It is about second chances and giving those individuals that there is hope,” he told me.
When comparing the service provided to others in the UK, Mr Bonnick notes that the “rules are a lot different” and while the “prisoners are the same wherever you are, that doesn’t matter”.
Prisoners can be separated into specialist teams, with categories ranging depending on the type of inmates they are holding. Here, though, they hold everyone.
He continued: “Having to house remands, lifers, convicted sex offenders, males, females, young offenders – all under one roof… that’s complex in itself. But with Declan’s team, and bringing on board the forensic psychologist team, we can look at that differently.
“I’m not saying this is new, but there is the scope to do that a lot more closely because probation and prison work go hand in glove.”
The implementation of this different approach has allowed for a “big impact” to be felt, Mr Crawley said, particularly due to the “ageing population of some of our prisoners”.
He noted that at present, for example, there were seven prisoners over the age of 70, and within that, two aged above 80 years old.
With their health needs, “come complexities”, not least that some of these people were unable to wash themselves.
“Our present officers aren’t trained to do personal hygiene work with an individual,” Mr Crawley noted.
“So it becomes increasingly complex for us in relation to how we manage our individuals’ care needs. Now, if that was in the UK [prisons], there’s probably wings… like an old people’s home, but they were all prisoners.”
It means that with the services offered, prison staff have to be “very creative” and think about what support they can offer.
Other struggles that can also be experienced include individuals receiving end-of-life care, where staff and the Governor ensure they are “as flexible as we possibly can be to ensure that those individuals are provided with comfort, support, decency and that environment” before they pass.
He added: “It’s difficult because you have got somebody on a wing along with a 20-year-old who doesn’t give a toss about the situation that that man’s… because at the minute we’re full, so we are limited in spaces.”
This increase in prison population has added to the headache experienced in ensuring the best support can be offered to those entering the Isle of Man Prison.
But these tribulations aren’t only felt by those on the island, with prisons everywhere in the UK appearing close to breaking point.
Another factor that has also seen more people arrested and subsequently jailed is the drug market on the island, adding to the near-100 percent increase in inmate numbers in recent years. Organised crime groups, selling drugs and moving them in and out of the Isle of Man.
“The drug industry is a lot more lucrative over here,” Mr Crawley said.
“For someone who sells their gram of cocaine on the island, they’ll get three times the amount they would get if they were selling in Liverpool… the risk to reward is higher.
“So that has seen an exponential rise, and people want to bring drugs onto the island because they’re getting more money.”
But behind all of the crime, and the offenders being taken into their new life behind bars, rehabilitation remains the facility’s most important tool in combating reoffending.
For some of the youngest, they just want to be seen as a gangster and so they can often be rehabilitated in a way that makes it take a career criminal slightly longer.
Across Mr Bonnick’s career, these cases can be solved; however, during his career, there are lots of examples where rehabilitation didn’t or couldn’t work, and offenders would spend “half of their lives inside”. Intervention wasn’t forthcoming, and often the only real deterrent during imprisonment was the chance of falling in love or starting a family. But, some 20 years later, inventions were part and parcel of prison rehabilitation.
“A lot of our guys and ladies will have… come from adverse childhood experiences, lots of difficulties and within growing up seen parental breakdown, abuse – all types of things,” Mr Crawley added.
“So it’s about telling people: look, you’re better than this. There is hope.
“It’s a chipping away process… giving people belief because they haven’t had it before.”
He concluded: “We would give people an opportunity to change and believe in them that they can change. Now, the change process may well take 10 attempts, but we will continue to help until that happens.”