The Government must act swiftly to address the damage caused by imprisoning women, according to a new report (2) published 25th July 2007 by the Fawcett Society's Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System (3).

In the first six months of 2007 six women have committed suicide in prison in England and Wales, more than in the whole of either of the last two years. This demonstrates the failure of the criminal justice system to meet the needs of women. Yet the Government has not yet responded to the recommendations of the Corston review of vulnerable women in the criminal justice system (4), and since its publication in March 2007 four more women have taken their own lives in prison.

The problem

Women are being sent to prison who simply should not be there

Less than one-third (29%) of the 4,326 women in prison have committed violent offences (5).
More than a third of all adult women in prison have no previous convictions - more than double the figure for men (6).
Most women are sentenced to very short prison sentences (7), which leave them homeless and unemployed but do not address the causes of their offending. As a result, nearly two-thirds (64%) of female prisoners re-offend within two years of their release.
Sending women to prison separates nearly 18,000 children from their mothers each year, and 95% of them are moved from their family home, creating even more disruption in their lives.

The solution

The Fawcett Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System recommends that

Women should not be sent to prison for non-violent crimes.
The Government must urgently set out a plan to implement the recommendations of the Corston Report in full, providing community alternatives to prison that are designed for women.

Commenting on the report, Baroness Jean Corston, Chair of the Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System, said:

"Prison for women is over-used, counterproductive and - far too often - fatal. Six women have taken their lives in prison this year alone. How many more women prisoners must die before we stop sending vulnerable women who haven't even committed a violent offence to prison?

"We need a radical new approach that will properly rehabilitate women – not more futile stays in prison. With a new Government setting out a fresh agenda for the future, the new Ministry of Justice must take this opportunity to place women's needs at the heart of the criminal justice system."

Sukhvinder Stubbs, Chief Executive of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, which funds the Commission's work, added:

"This report demonstrates the importance of the Fawcett Society's Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System. There are no further excuses for delay. The Government needs to set a clear timetable for reform for women in the criminal justice system. This report is an important reminder of the urgent work that needs to be done."

Notes

(2) The report examines the work that has been done in the last year to improve the criminal justice system for women, as offenders, victims and staff and concludes that:

Prison is overused, ineffective and often damaging for many women offenders, while existing community sentences often fail to meet the needs of women.

Services for female victims of crime are geographically patchy and vary in quality. Violence against women remains at crisis levels, and the Government has failed to produce a national strategy to address violence against women, a key recommendation of last year's Commission report.

The implementation of the gender equality duty must be prioritised across the criminal justice system to ensure that all criminal justice agencies are meeting their legal obligations.

(3) The Fawcett Society's Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System was launched in 2002 to look at the way women are treated as victims, offenders and practitioners in the system. For more information on the Commission see http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=81

(4) Baroness Corston's independent review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system for the Home Office resulted in the Corston Report – see http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/corston-report/ for more details and http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/press-releases/the-corston-report?version=1 for the Home Office's press release.

(5) Statistics taken from the monthly population in custody statistics for May 2007 – see http://www.justice.gov.uk/docs/population-in-custody-may07.pdf

(6) Statistic from the Home Office's Offender Management Caseload Statistics 2005 - see http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hosb1806.pdf

(7) In 2005, nearly two-thirds (63%) of women prisoners were sentenced to custody for six months or less. Statistic from the Home Office's Offender Management Caseload Statistics 2005 – see http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hosb1806.pdf

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