YOUNG MOTHERS FROM CUSTODY TO COMMUNITY CONFERENCE

Cherie Booth QC has called for fewer women to be jailed to avoid what she calls the ‘tragedy of wasted lives’ and ‘damaging the next generation of young children’.

Speaking at the opening today of a conference organized by the Prison Reform Trust to call attention to the unmet needs of young mothers in prison and explore alternatives to custody Ms Booth said that ‘we are not helping society, victims, offenders or their children by holding so many women in prison’ and called on the courts to use the ‘range of sentencing options which enable women offenders to account for their crimes while avoiding the negative outcomes of imprisonment’.

Ms Booth highlighted research by the Prison Reform Trust which estimates that nearly 18,000  children face growing up without their mother due to the increasing numbers of women imprisoned in England and Wales and added that ‘we need to make sure that today’s sons and daughters of prisoners don’t end up tomorrow’s offenders’.

She painted a bleak picture of the ‘emotional suffering’ experienced by women in prison and noted that despite the fact that research shows that maintaining good family ties can reduce a prisoner’s risk of re-offending by six times at the end of last year half of all women in prison were held more than 50 miles from their home town and a quarter were held more than 100 miles away. 

The conference, Young Mothers from Custody to Community, is a unique event bringing together groups from criminal justice agencies and family support organizations to discuss the needs of young mothers in prison.

The conference aims to:
* Promote alternatives to prison wherever possible for young mothers.

* Improve and integrate support for young mothers in prison and their children and partners outside.

* Ensure that once released from prison young mothers and their families have better  support with parenting and are given more opportunities to find employment and  housing.

Joanne Sherlock, the Young Parents in Prison Project Manager at the Prison Reform Trust, said today:

"Children are the forgotten victims of Britain's growing obsession with imprisonment. Each year thousands of children face an unhappy and uncertain future as a result of their mother's imprisonment. Wherever possible courts should avoid custody and look to use community sentences which can allow offenders to put something back into society, whilst also ensuring that families stay together.’’

Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust, added:

‘It is hard to think of a worse place than jail for a young mother or a pregnant woman, not because staff do not try to respond to prisoners’ needs, but because prisons are punishments of last resort not care or treatment centres for exceptionally vulnerable women with, or without, their babies.

Why do we persist in locking up young mothers, who have mostly not committed serious or violent offences, holding them miles from home and damaging another generation of small dependent children when, given the comparatively small numbers involved, it would be possible to establish local support and supervision centres for women who offend?’

The Prison Reform Trust project ‘Young Parents in Prison’ is supported by the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Monument Trust, the Michael Sieff Foundation and APSA, the Association for Professionals in Services with Adolescents.

A full version of the text of Cherie Booth QC’s speech is available online at the Prison Reform Trust’s website: www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk