Government's new initiative on community sentencing for women is long overdue but should be welcomed, writes Dick Skellington.
The Prison Reform Trust has previously called on government to support community solutions to women's offending. They make the cogent point that improving the system for women should also benefit men.
Government's own research concludes that community sentences are more effective than short prison terms. Community women's centres provide a safe place for women to address underlying problems while maintaining care of their children.
We are not imprisoning women today on the scale of our forefathers, far from it. In 1900, women made up 17.1% of the total prisoner population in England and Wales. By 2011, the proportion of women prisoners had fallen to 5.9 per cent. Today too, women receive reduced sentences for perpetuating similar crimes to males.
But between 2000 and 2011 the female prison population in England and Wales rose by 27%. In the 12 months up to June 2011, 80% of women entering custody under sentence had committed a non-violent offence, compared with 70% of men entering custody.Theft and handling stolen goods were by far the most common offences, accounting for 34% of sentenced receptions.
Over 10,000 women were imprisoned in England and Wales in 2011, more than double the number 15 years ago. Most of the rise in the female prison population can be explained by a significant increase in the severity of sentences. In 1996, 10% of women convicted of an indictable offence were sent to prison, in 2010 14% were (see these statistics).These changes reflect a shifting national context towards increased sentencing, despite falling levels of most crime.
Locking women up in prison does not appear to be a very cost-effective way of dealing with crime. In 2010, a Prison Reform Trust study found that non-custodial, intensive intervention would offer significant cost savings and cut crime.
Look for a moment at the shocking background of women prisoners in today’s Britain. One in four women in prison have spent part of their childhood in local authority care. Nearly 40% of women in prison left school before the age of 16 years, almost one in 10 were aged 13 or younger when they left school. Almost a third of women prisoners were permanently excluded from school – what a comment on the educational system. A third of women prisoners have had a previous psychiatric admission, 51% report they have endured a mental illness, 37% say they have attempted suicide, and 10% were sleeping rough at the time of their arrest. According to the Ministry of Justice, women are less able (due for example to mental health issues) to conform to prison rules, while significant proportions were addicted to drugs and/or alcohol. Over half of women in prison report having experienced domestic violence and one-third sexual abuse. These are disturbing trends.
One of the pressing issues is the treatment of mothers in prison. It is estimated that over 4 out of 10 young women in prison in England and Wales are mothers, and that thousands of children have been separated from their mothers by imprisonment.
In 2010, 17,240 children were separated. The location of imprisoned mothers is sometimes so remote that maintaining contact with children is rendered problematic. This is made even more difficult by the small number of women-only prisons. In 2009, according to Women in Prison, 753 women were held in English and Welsh prisons over 100 miles from home. Only one half of women with children had received a visit since sentencing. For many women serving a prison sentence for the first time, it was the first time they had been separated from their children for any significant length of time, and this separation can prove final. As well as the risk of losing their children, nearly a third of women prisoners lose their homes and possessions while in prison. Government statistics show that re-offending among women prisoners is higher among mothers who have had no contact with their children during their sentence. Is it any wonder that new Government figures show that the self-harm rate for women prisoners is over ten times higher than for men?
We must not overlook too another dark side of women's prison experience – the treatment they sometimes suffer. In a report last year into New Hall prison, Wakefield, prison inspectors criticised the "unnecessary and unacceptable" practice of cutting off women's clothes when they were strip-searched. An outrageous practice in any penal system which claims to rehabilitate. Responses to women whose behaviour caused concern were also "excessively punitive", the investigation concluded. Some of the most damaged women at the 350-inmate prison were placed on the segregation unit for "good order and discipline" but efforts to address the causes of their distress and manage their behaviour constructively were inadequate, the report said (see this article).
And what happens to women prisoners on release? Recidivism is high: 51% of women leaving prison are re-convicted within one year – for those serving sentences of less than 12 months this increases to 62%. For those women who have served more than 10 previous custodial sentences the re-offending rate rises to 88%. Most experts predict that the onset of austerity Britain will mean more women will be imprisoned.
There are encouraging signs that overuse of remand for women is starting to be reversed after remaining high over the past decade. There were 689 women on remand on 31 March 2012, 12% fewer than the same time in 2011. The introduction of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (2012) provides further opportunities to reduce the women’s remand population.
Another positive sign is the Government’s commitment to establish a network of liaison and diversion services for vulnerable offenders by 2014, backed by Department of Health investment of £50 million towards its development and evaluation. This initiative is to be welcomed and should prove of particular benefit to women. Establishing liaison services at police stations and courts was a key recommendation of Lord Bradley’s review of mental health and learning disabilities in the justice system and should ensure that people receive the treatment that they need outside of the criminal justice system.
The Prison Reform Trust has launched a new three-year programme designed to reduce women’s imprisonment rates. The strategy includes: mapping arrest and custody patterns across the UK; targeting high custody areas; promoting alternatives to custody and examples of good and interesting practice; and raising awareness of the complex factors affecting women’s offending and supporting the development of more effective responses to it.
Looking at the profile of women prisoners and the fact that significant numbers are mothers with young children, it seems a no-brainer that we should be exploring alternatives to incarceration. Whilst there are women in prison who have committed serious and violent crime, the majority have not, and are there for very short periods.
So this is a good time for the authorities to begin to further explore new community options preventing women, especially mothers, from entering prison, and thus helping affected families to survive. The Justice Minister's statement is to be applauded.
It will be some time before we can assess the effectiveness of the Government's new initiative. But the plan to introduce robust community sentences may be the first step on a very long road to more humane treatment of female offenders.
Dick Skellington 26 March 2013
The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.
Cartoon by Gary Edwards