IT is very rarely anyone gets a look inside the UK’s only Military Correctional Training Centre based in Colchester.
Usually only those who work or volunteer there or whose misdemeanours have brought them there see behind the closed gates.
The Gazette was given a behind the scenes visit to the centre to find out about the work which goes on there.
The Armed Forces Act allows individuals to be placed under detention for a period from two weeks to two years at the centre.
Anyone serving in the Army, Navy or Air Force can be detained at the Ministry of Defence centre in Berechurch Hall Road for their crimes or military offences.
Detention times of less than two weeks is completed in small facilities across the UK which are run by the Military Provost Staff, who specialise in custody and detention.
If a member of military personnel commits a more serious crime, they would go through a court marshal centre.
And if the guidelines were for a custodial sentence of more than two years, they would only be held at the MCTC for a few days, whilst the paperwork process is completed, and would then be transferred to a civilian prison.
In January, the MCTC, which was known as the glasshouse, had 33 detainees and currently has 39, who are all male and mostly aged between 19 and 24.
The number of detainees has fluctuated between the low thirties and fifties for the past couple of years, but the centre can hold more than 200 people if necessary.
Major Rob Moffat, 50, has spent 13 years within the Military Provost Staff (MPS).
He said: “It’s not that the defence personnel are behaving more than they did a decade ago, the size of the Army, Navy and Air Force has shrunk.
“If you looked at what legislation says a vulnerable individual is, it’s anyone in lawful custody.
“They’re deprived of their liberty and they’re not being paid, they are vulnerable.
“Offences vary but at the moment, there’s around about a 50/50 split between what would be deemed as breaking a rule and breaking the law.”
Examples include violent offences, fraud, not turning up for work or being disrespectful to their commanding officer.
A large amount of the individuals detained had gone AWOL - absent from their service without leave.
One of the aims of the centre is to refresh their passion for military service and there are various programmes to unpick what they did to reduce the risk of them reoffending.
Mr Moffat said: “It’s about ensuring they leave here a better citizen to become a productive member of society.
“We’re not here to lock them behind a door and scream and shout at them, it’s about that rehabilitative journey and whether that’s through military training for those going back to work or a citizenship and employability type courses so we can ease the transition.
“It’s not an oppressive nature when they arrive because they are used to military establishments and that is the same with females, they’re used to that type of environment.
“I think they’d be apprehensive initially because they think what’s behind the fence and then quickly realise it isn’t what they thought it would be.”
A prisons inspectorate report last month found sex offenders and violent criminals were being freed from the MCTC “without any safeguards or probation supervision”.
Inspectors found “considerable gaps” in protection arrangements meaning checks were not being carried out to establish whether some offenders could still pose a risk to the public after being released.
A prisons inspectorate report also found victims in the armed forces were not being told when detainees were returning to work alongside them.
The Independent Monitoring Board is one of the many levels of assurance at the correctional site and it is looking for new volunteers. It currently has five members who spend a couple of hours a month checking the detainees.
It is looking for people with a wide range of backgrounds to join the team to support detainees.
The board members make a judgement from an outsider’s perspective for an unbiased angle on any issues a detainee might have.
Chrissy Marshall, 72, has been the chairwoman of the independent monitoring board for the MCTC for two years and has been a member of the board for seven years.
She said: “It is completely independent monitoring of how effective this establishment is at looking after the individuals within its boundaries.
“We see that their health and welfare is looked after and that what they say they’re going to do with the detainees actually happens in that they are helped and supported through looking at their offending behaviour.
“We respond to applications, which used to be called complaints, from the detainees.
“There is a box in various locations and the individuals can quietly and confidentially put an envelope into that box.
“What we do is fascinating, every single one of the detainees is different and in here for different reasons.
“Their problems and concerns are different every single time and really relevant to them.”
Ms Marshall added: “It’s important to them that we listen, hear what they have to say and find the other issues that could be linked.
“There are some that are more vulnerable than others, for example, we have under 18s here who are a special case the independent board has to look at.”
The centre rarely sees under 18s or females and described them as being like buses as when they see one, more tend to come in after that.
Some detainees have the freedom to go off camp, but this wasn’t allowed during the pandemic because of lockdown rules.
Detainees have access to television, newspapers, telephone and skype calls but because some of them hadn’t been out during the pandemic it was hard for them to understand.
Ms Marshall said: “Some of the detainees were unaware of how restrictive the Covid lockdown was, they didn’t understand that people couldn’t go out and do what they wanted.”
The IMB looks out for detainees when they don’t agree with certain situations and looks for solutions with an outsider’s point of view.
To apply to see inside the MCTC and help to provide detainees with support, applications must be submitted by Sunday, June 19 to ResPublicAppts@mod.gov.uk quoting the reference number 50323_MCTCIMB_MEMBER
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