Stronger Commitments Needed: The Ministry of Justice Report on the Government’s Strategy for Diverting Women away from Crime
Women in Prison are pleased that the Ministry of Justice Report on the Government’s Strategy for Diverting Women away from Crime, marking two years since the government’s response to the Corston Report, can speak of concrete actions as well as policy developments.But we remain concerned that the commitments in this report do not go far enough.
Sustainability of Community Projects
The report highlights the funding the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) made available in 2009 for community projects aimed at diverting women from custody. Women in Prison are pleased to have received grants to deliver diversion services in London and Manchester. It is crucial that the learning from the services funded by the MOJ is captured and that the services become sustainable. The women we work with need consistency and longevity from support service. We are concerned that the measures mentioned in this report are not sufficient.The MOJ is placing the onus for sustainability on the Directors of Offender Management (DOMs) without providing them with additional resources to enable this.The reduction in the number of women’s prison places will create capacity in the male prison estate rather achieving the stated aim of redirecting the resources to community provision for women.The report emphasises the role of Probation Trusts and Boards in championing commissioning for women-specific services.However, without a driver to ensure that they take on this role there is a risk of continuing the current situation of patchy provision for women and a view of women-specific services as an optional extra.
Approved Premises
The report commits £5million to be spent on approved premises, but this is misdirected to improve accommodation and not to provide the additional support services that are desperately needed.
Early Intervention and the Family Intervention Projects
The report commits over £1million to pilot early intervention work by expanding Family Intervention Projects to focus on women and their dependent children.Family Intervention Projects currently focus on children and young people and problems around anti-social behaviour and it is not clear how they will be adapted to meet the needs of women, in particular those women who do not have children or, like many of our clients, no longer have contact with their children.
Police Custody
Work on early intervention could usefully focus on police custody.Improving responses at this stage of a woman’s contact with the criminal justice system would increase the opportunity for diversion from prison.
Conditional Cautioning
The report commits to promoting and embedding the Women’s Conditional Cautioning scheme.The scheme has been piloted in Liverpool and Bradford, on different models, therefore, roll out should wait until the evaluation of the pilots is complete and lessons can be learnt from them.
Bail Support
With a high proportion of the women’s prison population on remand we welcome the commitment to improve bail support, however, the proposals at present are unspecific.We look forward to seeing how this programme develops.
Cross Departmental Work
The cross departmental nature of the government’s work on women offenders is welcomed – it is vital that the government continue to recognise that effective responses for women are not the sole responsibility of criminal justice agencies.However, there is still too little understanding of the rights and needs of women offenders in departments outside the Ministry of Justice.For example, the lack of attention to women in the Bradley report and the government’s response indicates that the need for women-specific provision has not yet been fully understood in all departments.
The government must return to the idea of small custodial units that they so hastily abandoned in 2008. For those women for whom custody is appropriate the prison system as it stands is not.Women should only be held in custodial units designed for women. This will become even more pressing as the number of women’s prison places is reduced and more women are held further from home.In their 2008 report on the UK the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) called on the government to establish small custodial units for women it would be shameful if the government had taken no further steps towards achieving this when they report to CEDAW next year.
We recognise that there have been positive developments but we remember the three women who took their lives in prison this year. We cannot become complacent whilst women continue to be put at risk in a prison system that is not designed for them.
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