Our criminal justice system imprisons twice as many women now, as it did in the nineties. No increase in the quantity or gravity of female crime has happened, to justify this. Harsh penal policy, directed at tougher sentencing for men – who are 96% of the prison population – seems simply to have carried women along with it. Yet, it is almost two decades since Baroness Corston recommended, in her seminal Report, that there should be:
“a distinct radically different, visibly led, strategic, proportionate, holistic, woman-centred, integrated approach” towards women in prison.”
That need for a targeted approach to women is even stronger now. Imprisonment grows while research shows, what a huge role domestic and sexual abuse play, as drivers of women’s offending. The Prison Reform Trust’s Report: ‘There’s a Reason We’re in Trouble’ (2017) found that 67% of women in prison had suffered abuse, with most in the grip of a male perpetrator, at the time of their offence. Some women were coerced into delivering drugs or shoplifting to order. Many were convicted of stealing food, to survive when being starved of cash, or of stealing alcohol to self-medicate. Other women strike back, after years of abuse, and are convicted of violence themselves. Some are arrested, when they have called the police, and manipulative perpetrators make cross-allegations.
One prisoner, Mary told PRT that she was in an abusive relationship for 3 years. He had, repeatedly, assaulted her and, though she was a disqualified driver, threatened her family unless she drove him to deliver drugs. The police stopped them and found his cannabis, but Mary took the blame, together with admitting that she was driving whilst disqualified.
Belinda also spoke to PRT. She has scars, from her ex-partner throwing boiling water over her and slashing her with broken glass. She suffers from ADHD and depression. He took her to a party, got drunk and tried to force himself on her, so she punched him, to get away. He got his friends to make statements and the police prosecuted her for assault.
A variant is that, frustrated by police incomprehension, a victim, who has called them, shouts at them or pushes them away. If a male officer takes hold of a female victim, it can cause a struggle, through a ‘fight or flight’ response, as she relives earlier trauma. Offences such as these, committed against police officers, usually result in imprisonment.
Typically, women get short sentences. But if this sounds merciful, that is the wrong conclusion. 53% are sentenced to less than 6 months and another 17% to less than12 months, and all are released halfway through. Few courses/treatments, to tackle complex needs, are available on that brief time scale. Many programmes have been defunded and the remainder have entry queues far longer than the sentences themselves. That means that 70% of, often needy, women, who go to prison, are just warehoused, without getting any benefit, nor any new learning, to set them up for a future.
For male prisoners, relationships can be a protective factor; wives hold the family together. But abusive fathers rarely keep the home fires burning. Women can lose their children, their home, their job, and their friends, through one short prison sentence. 17,000 children a year are separated from their mothers, by custody.
Jane told PRT that the Magistrates’ Court imprisoned her when she had not expected it. Her little boy went into care. When she ended her sentence, all she had was a prison-issue thermos and a tent. 3 years later, she still hasn’t seen her son.
Not surprisingly, 55% of women, who get short prison sentences, reoffend. Suspending a sentence can mean that home, job, children, family, and local connections are preserved, and fewer than 30% of women, on those sentences, re-offend.
The Tory Government, perforce, was legislating to suspend all prison sentences of less than 12 months. Prison capacity is around 89000 and, without that change, they estimated a need for 94000 places, before the end of this year.
Albeit as an incidental, that legislation would have taken a very welcome scythe, to the damaging, short sentences currently imposed upon women.
The new government should do the same, but this time, intentionally. It should also look closely at the Greater Manchester and West Midlands Women’s Problem-Solving Courts. In both regions, probation staff harness local services such as mental health and housing, to tailor community-based sentencing packages for women who offend. Depleted services can make this hard, but there is huge commitment, and early data is looking good.
An impressive innovation is that the sentencing judge reviews the defendant’s progress, every few months, at court. The judges are outstanding and see the opportunity to improve these women’s lives. They both discipline and encourage. Women emerge wide-eyed, with the belief that the justice system requires them to try hard so that they can do well.
Of course, it is insufficient to improve the process that picks up the pieces. We must, quickly, hugely re-invigorate the fight against male abuse of women, and I have no doubt our new Labour Government is committed to that mission.
However, it is darkly ironic, that overcrowding in male prisons, some of it caused by the sentencing of violent men, may ultimately trigger the tailored, rehabilitative approach to women in trouble, that Jean Corston’s Review recommended many years ago.