By Mark Ansell

"I'm still in jail, stuck inside my cell, it's like living hell. But I was born to ride and at the same time born to die…I'm stuck in a storm" I listened to the gangster rap that a trainee had produced. The Lyrics said so much about his life.

Having watched the outside world close behind me, I walked fearfully through the grounds of the youth prison. My aim was to find out how music is used as a form of rehabilitation at Huntercombe, a young offenders' institute with trainees aged 15 to 18, some of whom have been convicted of grave crimes for which an adult would be sentenced to 14 years or more.

MCing, scratching, heads nodding….Eventually I got to see the young inmates creating the music. Ben Clements, from Reaching The Parts, a music-making project which targets disadvantaged youth, helps to run the music course. The course is made up of radio production, electronic music and DJ/turntables. The young trainees get to do everything to produce a cd including writing the lyrics, making the beats, MCing and designing the cd cover. I watched Ben teaching a student how to beat mix on the decks. Heavy drum and bass beats were blasting out while another teenager created a tune on the computer. One of the trainees told me how, "We work together a lot, featuring on each-others tracks."

Nikki Cripps, an Instructional Officer at Huntrcombe told me that if the teenagers successfully complete their course, they receive a qualification: "For a lot of them it's the first qualification they get; it's about encouraging them in something they're good at." But does the music course work as a form of rehabilitation? "It has worked because it helps the trainees to express themselves and communicate what's inside…It allows them to talk in a language that makes sense; it's their form of poetry" says Nikki.

Despite being saddened by the situation these young people (younger than me) have placed themselves in, I left with a sense of hope. Trainees told me how they couldn't wait to be on the outside and "sorting myself out and getting a job, any job". The fundamental things that the music course gives the teens are: "Confidence in their ability to achieve and self-worth, which a lot of these young people don't have" says Nikki.