Thousands of vulnerable women who have committed non-violent offences and pose no risk to the public are unnecessarily sent to prison each year in England and Wales. The Prison Reform Trust was therefore delighted when, just before Christmas, the House of Lords amended the Crime and Courts Bill to ensure that appropriate community-based options for women, which take account of their distinct needs, should be provided across England and Wales.

The amendment was tabled by our chair, Lord Woolf, and received substantial cross-party support. Unfortunately, the amendment was struck out at the start of the Bill’s passage through the House of Commons, on 5 February. However, the government has expressed sympathy with the purpose of the amendment and “readily acknowledge that there are many complex factors associated with women’s offending, including domestic violence, sexual abuse, substance misuse and homelessness.”

The Bill has now finished its passage through the House of Commons and is likely to return to the House of Lords, for consideration of Commons’ amendments, on Monday 25 March, when Peers will have the opportunity to reinsert the original ‘women’s amendment’ in Part 7 of Schedule 15 in the Bill. More information on the amendment and why it is needed is below.

Thank you to those of you who wrote to your MPs in support of the amendment.
This has undoubtedly helped to raise Parliamentary awareness of the pressing need for reform of women’s justice system. In the remaining stages of the Bill, the Prison Reform Trust will work to ensure statutory protection of women’s community provision.

Over the last decade, a series of reports, including Baroness Corston’s in 2007, confirmed that community solutions that address the particular causes of women’s offending are more effective than prison in reducing crime and minimising the cost to society.  

In 2011 over 10,000 women were sent to prison, most to serve short sentences for non-violent crimes.  Many women in prison have themselves been the victims of serious crime, including domestic violence, sexual abuse and rape.  Mental health problems, drug and alcohol addiction and self-harm are also particularly common among women in prison.  An estimated 17,240 children were separated from their mother by prison in 2010.  

51% of women leaving prison reoffend within one year.  Court-ordered community sentences have been proven to be more effective, particularly where they are specifically designed with women’s needs and characteristics in mind.  Despite this, today there are nearly 4,000 women in prison in England and Wales compared to 1,800 fifteen years ago.  Numbers have started to come down slightly, but progress is slow and the availability of community based options that work for women is very patchy. 

 

The amendment appeared as Part 7 of Schedule 15 to the Bill and stated:

Provision for female offenders

29 (1) Contracts made by the Secretary of State with probation trusts shall require each probation trust to make appropriate provision for the delivery of services to female offenders.

(2) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) shall include provision for women wherever appropriate to carry out unpaid work and participate in programmes designed to change offending behaviour with the particular needs of women in mind.

This would ensure that agencies responsible for supervising people serving community sentences offer appropriate provision for women.  For example, holding women-only reporting times so that vulnerable women are not intimidated by male offenders in the probation office, and taking childcare needs into account when organising unpaid work for women offenders. Unless there is an explicit legal requirement to provide them, services for women will continue to be overlooked. Minor amendments to the clause wording may be needed to reflect planned changes to the commissioning of probation services.  This could be done without affecting the substance of the provision.

Having services consistently available in every area across the country should help to build sentencers’ confidence in community sentencing for women, so that fewer women are imprisoned unnecessarily.  Most importantly, it should help to reduce offending by women and lessen the consequential damage to families and communities.  

 

The government has said it does not disagree with the underlying principle of the Lords’ amendment. Its explanation for removing it is that the government is currently consulting on the proposed reorganisation of probation services and “it could be unhelpful to introduce legislation specifying commissioning duties for women’s services”. 

However, as Lord Woolf pointed out, ‘there is nothing in the proposed provision which can harm the government's good intentions’  The reality is that at present the availability of women’s services is very patchy and many of the good  services that do exist are at risk because of reduced funding.  A statutory obligation to adopt  a tailored approach is the best way of ensuring services are strengthened and extended across the country.  The Crime and Courts Bill presents a vital opportunity to secure a long-overdue legislative foothold for women in the criminal justice system.

 

 

Help us to build a just, humane and effective penal system

The Prison Reform Trust works hard to ensure a just, humane and effective penal system - one which reserves prison for the most serious offenders, and treats prisoners and their families with the humanity and respect they deserve. We do this by gathering and disseminating clear and accurate information about the prison system, and promoting practical and constructive solutions to entrenched problems.

 

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