Women offenders: after the Corston Report - United Kingdom ...

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 318 December 2012 Rt Hon Baroness Corston and Liz Hogarth OBEThere have been promises of the publication ofstrategic priorities. The initial commitment was madelast March; we are still waiting. Now the commitmentis that that will happen in the new year. I think that isgreat. It is really good news to hear that Helen Grant isgoing to lead on the agenda, but those strategic prioritiesare talking about women offenders. We seem to havelost the whole agenda for women at risk, and, for me,that is the Corston approach. I am not sure whether thathas been deliberate. There has been a huge turnover ofcivil servants where the expertise was held on women,so I am not sure how well the corporate memory hasbeen held and passed on to current Ministers, but it isvery worrying not to have something in place that onecould call a strategy.Q9 Steve Brine: With regard to the Corston strategythen, the MOJ have promised this cross‐departmentalstrategy on women offenders, and there will be aWhite Paper in the new year on the rehabilitationrevolution, within which it may well be included. But,Baroness Corston, what changes would you make toyour recommendations if you were asked again, and, ifyou were, let us say, refreshing it—your sequel to thecurrent Government? What changes would you make,or does it all hold firm and it is just, “Get on with it,guys”?Baroness Corston: I don’t think I would make anysignificant changes. I would want to emphasise thecrucial importance of the strategy to which Liz Hogarthreferred, but also regular reporting to Parliament. Whatwas great about the previous Government was thatMaria Eagle—you can check the record—routinelyreported to Parliament with written ministerialstatements. Then you could monitor the progress theywere making against the targets that they had set. Thatis a crucial point.The other thing that I would want to do if I could nowis to look at foreign national women in our prisons.I wanted to do it at the time, but there were things Ihad to exclude from my remit because I only hadnine months from beginning to the report being onthe Minister’s desk, which is not very long, seeingthat two months in the summer were virtually wastedmonths. The plight of foreign national women in ourprisons is truly shocking, because most of them arethere because they are very poor and obviously theirchildren are thousands of miles away. There is onewonderful organisation called Hibiscus, which Liznow chairs, which works with these women. But, inHolloway, the last time I visited there, they found thatan increasing number of Chinese women were beingdetained. One woman screamed hysterically for 36hours. They could not understand why. She thoughtshe was about to be shot. There was nobody there whospoke her language. They now have people who speakMandarin, but these women are being brought into thecountry to sell pirated DVDs and the like. You onlyhave to be in a prison now—in Holloway—and see thenumber of foreign languages into which instructionsare translated, to see the very large numbers of womenfrom different nationalities and different parts of theworld, who are there generally because they have donethe bidding of criminals.Q10 Jeremy Corbyn: On that point about Holloway,is there enough legal advice and support there aboutthe possibility of those prisoners completing theirsentences back home, because my impression is that itis rather limited?Baroness Corston: When I have been in Hollowayor any other women’s prison, I have had no evidenceof any systematic support in that way, but Liz mightknow. Do you?Liz Hogarth: There is support, with outside agenciesgoing in. Certainly, Hibiscus goes in. Their contracthas suffered some cuts in the last couple of years, asthe pressures on prisons go across the piece. Again,to refer back to strategy, one difficulty is that thereis no longer a foreign national strategy within thewomen’s estate, and that helped previously to keeppeople focused on the needs. There could well beslippage happening. Foreign national co‐ordinators inprisons may be good, but, if there is no questioningfrom the centre and NOMS to make sure that it reallyis happening, then it becomes unknown.Q11 Jeremy Corbyn: What would you like to seehappening?Liz Hogarth: A very clear strategy, both for foreignnational women and eastern European women inparticular, that empowers staff to work well with themin prisons but also is open-facing to the outside agenciesto get that advice in. An organisation like Hibiscus,which comes with up to 53 volunteers speakingdifferent languages, can access those women quickly ifthey are welcomed into that prison environment. Theyhave a very good relationship in Holloway and arevery welcomed, but it is the pressure. As I understandit, Holloway now has nearly 600 women in it. Thatis an awful lot of women in a relatively small prison,and that can make it difficult in accessing and makingthings happen.Q12 Mr Llwyd: Good morning. To what extent hasthe Gender Equality Duty assisted in the developmentof services to prevent women’s offending?Baroness Corston: It gave a legislative backstop for theargument about gender specific services. It led to theNational Service Framework for Women Offenders;it led to the Gender Specific Standards for WomenPrisoners. Once again, that was a cross‐departmentalthing, but Harriet Harman and Barbara Follett inEqualities, and Vera Baird, Patricia Scotland, MariaEagle and Fiona Mactaggart together provided theimpetus for saying, “Okay, we have this legislativeframework. Now, the challenge is to make sure thatthere is an effective implementation.” We all know thatit is ever so easy to pass legislation. The difficulty ismaking sure that it is implemented. The great thingabout that critical mass of women was that they hadthe authority within Government to make sure that theduty itself could be used in this way, so that when Iadvanced this argument I was not pushing against alocked door. It was just an easy argument to make.They understood instinctively what I was talking aboutand that made a huge difference.Q13 Mr Llwyd: HM Inspectorate of Prisons recentlytold us: “Simply treating women the same as men will