Context

The report starts by stating that our justice system, designed for men, is not working for women. Our prisons are full of trauma: over 60 per cent of women in prison have experienced domestic violence and more than half have experienced abuse as a child. Our prisons are bad at rehabilitating and deterring women from further offending; instead, they actively harm them and their children. Racially minoritised women are further disadvantaged: overrepresented at every point in the system and more likely than white women to be remanded and receive a sentence in the Crown Court. The human and financial cost of the system’s failure is significant.

The government has announced a bold approach to respond to these issues. The creation of a Women’s Justice Board (WJB) and its new strategy will, it is stated, reduce the number of women in prison and tackle the root causes of women’s offending by driving early intervention, diversion and alternatives to custody. If these outcomes are achieved, there will be less crime and fewer victims; and women, their families and their communities will benefit.

The authors state that this new direction is a cause for celebration, but argue that if the initiative is to work, it is imperative we learn from the lessons of the past in order to avoid making the same mistakes; and look to other models for solutions in order to deliver, finally, a justice system that works for women.

Critical success factors

The report starts by exploring the lack of change in the system despite the cross-party consensus created by the Corston Report in 2007. It examines the structures of the Women’s Justice Board before looking in detail at five key issues:

1. Community sentences and the need to revitalise the probation service
2. The role of women’s centres and specialist women’s services
3. The importance of women being front and centre in designing an appropriate criminal justice system
4. Preventing women entering the CJS
5. A public health approach to prevent the criminalisation of women

Recommendations

The report concludes with a set of 19 recommendations focusing on these key areas. I have reproduced a selection of the more pivotal ones below:

• The WJB should be modelled on aspects of the Youth Justice Board with proven efficacy; including being independent, data driven and actively focused on early intervention and prevention.
• Once the Board’s strategy is clear, ambitious targets and timelines for reducing women’s imprisonment should be set.
• The pivotal role of probation within the courts must be reclaimed. To improve the confidence of the judiciary in court reports, probation should provide comprehensive reports on all women, detailing the complexities of their lives and inputs from other agencies and women’s voluntary sector projects, alongside an assessment of their offending.
• Women’s centres and specialist organisations are at the heart of the holistic, woman-centred and integrated approach called for in the Corston Report and should be reflected as such in the strategy developed by the WJB. There needs to be sustainable funding for women’s centres and other projects, with longer term provision of funding and full cost recovery.
• A public health framework should be implemented to address the root causes of women’s criminalisation, emphasising the crucial importance of prevention and societal well-being to stop women being unnecessarily caught up in the criminal justice system.

Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here