Women offenders: Is the current strategy fit for purpose?

Juliet Lyon is director of Prison Reform Trust and secretary general of Penal Reform International.

Fifteen years ago, there were some 1,900 women in custody. Today there are 4,300. Women’s prisons have become our social dustbins. They are now seen as a stopgap, cut-price provider of drug detox, mental health assessment and rudimentary treatment – a refuge for those failed by public services.

At long last effective solutions that would cut offending by women, improve health and wellbeing and reduce justice costs, could be in prospect.

In the wake of six young women’s deaths at Styal prison, the government asked Baroness Jean Corston to undertake ‘a review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system’.

Nicholas Rheinberg, the Cheshire Coroner who had conducted the six inquests into the deaths at Styal Prison, gave evidence to this review and stated: I saw a group of damaged individuals, committing for the most part petty crime for whom imprisonment represented a disproportionate response.

That was what particularly struck me with Julie Walsh who had spent the majority of her adult life serving at regular intervals short periods of imprisonment for crimes which represented a social nuisance rather than anything that demanded the most extreme form of punishment.

I was greatly saddened by the pathetic individual who came before me as witnesses who no doubt mirrored the pathetic individuals who had died. The extent of those ‘particular vulnerabilities’ is laid out starkly in the Corston findings: more than half of women prisoners have suffered violence at home. One in three has
experienced sexual abuse. A quarter has been in local authority care. Two-thirds have a neurotic disorder, such as depression or anxiety.

Women prisoners have a much higher rate of severe mental illness such as schizophrenia: 14 per cent compared with less than 1 per cent in the general population. Over a third of women who are imprisoned will already have attempted suicide.

Women, who make up only 5 per cent of the prison population, account for half the incidents of serious self harm in custody. We are locking up our most damaged and vulnerable women in bleak, under-staffed institutions, from which, despite the best efforts of many people, they are almost bound to emerge more damaged, more vulnerable and less responsible.

When women do go to prison it has a huge impact on family life. Most women offenders are primary carers. Over 18,000 children are separated each year from their mothers. Although most do not go into local authority care, just 5 per cent of these children stay in their own home when their mother goes to prison.

Imprisonment will cause a third of women prisoners to lose their homes, reducing future chances of employment and shattering family ties. Ministry of Justice figures reveal that more than half those released will reoffend within two years.

Distressingly, governors and staff told Jean Corston, many women do not need to be in prison in the first place. More women are jailed for shoplifting than any other crime. About 40 per cent serve three months or less. Two-thirds of women enter prison on remand. When their cases are considered, one in five is acquitted and over half go on to serve a community penalty.

Lord Bradley’s recent review of diversion into mental health and social care for people who are mentally ill and those with learning disabilities and difficulties builds most usefully on the Corston findings. Lord Bradley recommends ready access to community mental health nurses for police stations and courts. This would lead to timely reports and reduce any needless remand in order to gain psychiatric assessments.

It is vital that those who administer justice have at their disposal sensible, proportionate penalties and effective measures to reduce the risk of women reoffending. New conditional cautioning arrangements, fines, community payback with childcare provision, women-only services for addicts, community
orders with mental health requirements, flexible responses to technical breach of license – all have their part to play. Provision for review of sentencing outcomes and the opportunity to visit women’s centres would enable magistrates to make their own assessment of the effectiveness of such places.

Baroness Corston’s report, published in 2007, presented an unequivocal case for avoiding the huge public cost of custody for women offenders who pose no risk to the public. It called for the closure of women’s prisons over a 10-year time period and their replacement with some small custodial units for serious and dangerous women offenders; and, for most women who come before the courts, a larger network of support and supervision centres in the community based on existing successful community centres, such as those in Halifax and Worcester visited by the Corston review group. These would provide access to services to help women deal with addictions, mental illness, rape and domestic violence, trauma and debt, while also helping them to gain skills and take responsibility for their families.

Since the Corston review was published it has attracted considerable cross-party support and firm Conservative and Liberal Democrat policy commitment. An ICM public opinion poll commissioned by SmartJustice found that, of 1,006 respondents, 86 per cent supported the development of local community centres for women to address the causes of their offending, while more than two thirds (67 per cent) believed that prison was not likely to reduce offending. Recent research by the new economics foundation has identified the cost effectiveness of community solutions to women’s offending.

The Corston review gives any government the chance to join up its social and criminal justice policies. Most women in prison have committed petty offences. Many have been victims of serious crime and sustained abuse. A new commission for women, with a sensible blueprint for reform across government
departments, could replace the outdated, discredited model of large prisons with a network of small units and effective local services. Women who have offended will have their first real opportunity to beat drugs, drink, mental illness, debt and crime, and to take responsibility for their lives, and those of their children. Most will take it.

www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk

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Tags: Baroness Corston, Jean Corston, Juliet Lyon, Prison Reform Trust, Women in Prison, Women in Prison - Policy, women's centres

Posted by Juliet Lyon on Sunday, March 28th, 2010 at 9:00 am.

Filed under Ask an Expert, Equality, Fresh Start, News, Tagged as: , Baroness Corston, Jean Corston, Juliet Lyon, Prison Reform Trust, Women in Prison, Women in Prison - Policy, women's centres.