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There has always been a strong Christian commitment to the welfare of prisoners. The origins of that lie in the gospel where Jesus says that anyone who visits the prisoner visits him. However, helping prisoners is not universally appreciated, and finding public money to improve work with them at a time of financial stringency is a hard sell. Last week, though, the government made such a commitment to young offenders. It announced plans to create a new generation of Secure Colleges that will have education at their heart. That could make a significant difference to young lives, and should be welcomed. Where young people have committed serious or persistent offences it's right that they face appropriate punishment. But if they are not to join the 71% of young offenders who currently re-offend within twelve months of release, there must also be a greater focus on rehabilitation. For most young people that means improving their education. The paper setting out the proposals speaks of the need of young offenders for skills, training and self-discipline. I wouldn't quarrel with that. But I would want to point to something else as well. At one time I was a frequent visitor to Young Offender Institutions. One particular visit made a deep impression. I talked to a young man about his life. He told me a story that I'd heard many times before and have heard many times since. An absent father. A mother who struggled with mental health problems. Non-attendance at school. A string of petty offences. At lunch-time I sat with him in the small canteen area. He mentioned a prison officer who, he said, had shown him kindness. 'What did he do?' I asked. He looked shyly around to be sure that no one was listening and said: 'He taught me how to use a knife and fork'. Before prison, meals had been chaotic with a lot of fish and chips and pizzas. If this young man was ever going to find an alternative to a crime-filled life, there were some very basic social skills that he needed. The prison officer had noticed and done something that was potentially as transformative for him as anything that might go on in a classroom. What the officer did sprang from something that would be hard to frame in a job description. In the Christian gospel it's called showing compassion. In this context it meant that a transaction took place that was not so much prison officer and inmate as one human being helping another. This may sound unexceptional; but in custodial institutions it's not necessarily easy to show compassion while maintaining authority. Yet this may be what enables everything else that happens in that place to succeed. And if the staff of our prisons are going to value young offenders in such ways as this, we in turn have to value them.