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

Ev 6 Justice Committee: Evidence18 December 2012 Rt Hon Baroness Corston and Liz Hogarth OBESomeone else was always to blame. She said, “Cominghere, I have been forced to acknowledge what myrole was in that happening to me.” She said, “It hasbeen much more difficult than being in prison and ithas involved me.” I asked her the question I often askpeople in prison and it always surprises them. I said,“Do you now like yourself?” She smiled and she said,“For the first time in my adult life, yes, I do.”It is not an easy option. There is this notion that,somehow, if you get sent to a women’s centre you willsit around and chat and have coffee. It is not like that atall. You have to challenge your own demons and takeresponsibility for your life, because, otherwise, you arenot a good neighbour or a good parent; you become thekind of person about whom your constituents write toyou and who are a problem for your local authority.These women know that and they want to be like therest of us.If I may say something too in response to the pointasked me by the Chairman about the attitude of thepublic to offences, I know of a woman who, in oneyear, shoplifted 99 times. You could say, “99 timesshoplifting—she should be banged up.” But, whenyou ask the question why she shoplifted 99 times, thiswas a woman whose partner was controlling, and hismethod of controlling was to give her no money. Hewas quite a wealthy person, somebody who may welllose child benefit, but the only money she had in herown name was child benefit, and when that was spentshe stole to feed her children. Does that put a differentcomplexion on the offence? I think it does.Q20 Seema Malhotra: A lot of what you have toldus today has been incredibly moving as well, withthe stories of women who have found their way, notnecessarily through their own fault, into the justicesystem. I want to expand on one thing. You havetalked very strongly about the need for Ministers tobe working together across Government so that youhave some joined-up policy and joined-up workingbetween civil servants. There also seems to be a pointabout how the justice system may be joined up withother areas of work, possibly with local governmentor charities, because the kind of women that you aretalking about coming through referrals to women’scentres will be picked up elsewhere. Do you think thathappens effectively enough, and does more need to bedone to work with women more holistically?Baroness Corston: It does happen in some places,sometimes in spite of institutional arrangements. In away it is ad hoc. For example, in my city of Bristolthere is now an organisation, which is acceptedand recognised by the magistrates courts, where adesignated woman member of staff services threemagistrates courts. If a woman is due to appear beforethe magistrates for a petty crime, this organisationsends in a support worker to talk to that woman abouther situation and then to mediate with the magistratesto say, “This is why this woman did what she did.We could do A, B, C, D and E with her and avoid hergoing to prison.” The bench has been very supportiveof that. There are things that happen, but, becauseit is so piecemeal and because it depends upon theimagination or the will or the acceptance of that kind oflocal organisation, then it does not happen. Because wehave no benchmarking any more, as it is now called, orno visible strategy, these things pop up and they cannotcontinue because they do not have funding. It may bethat you would want to add to that, Liz.Liz Hogarth: I would just echo what Jean is saying.For me, where you see really good things happeninglocally with the joined-upness, it is dependent on howwell established some of the women’s communityprojects are. They are not a homogenous group. Somehave been out there. The Calderdale WomenCentre,over 20 years, grew up in its locality. It started beingconcerned about women’s health. It has now grownhugely. To keep going, it has to deal with somethinglike 32 different funding streams to get sufficientmoney to keep going, but that indicates how well theyare embedded in their local community. They certainlywork extremely well with offenders as well. Thereis some very good emerging evidence from thosewomen’s projects that it can work really well locally.It is much harder for the newer projects—the oneswe funded almost from scratch with the CorstonIndependent Funders’ Coalition. We asked an awful lotof them very quickly and it takes a long time to getestablished in your locality. If you have never workedwith women offenders, it is a very big ask suddenly toturn to considering having specified activities in yourcentre that can work, and you are very dependent onprobation working closely with you. It is a good workin-progress,but there has been a slightly worryingshift with the funding for the centres now coming fromNOMS. Quite rightly, NOMS has some responsibilityfor that. Their world is criminal justice. The pressure ison some of those women community projects to focusvery much on the women offenders’ side. They do needmore support, nationally and from the centre, to hookinto the new local commissioners as well, to help thembuild on the very good work that is there.Q21 Mr Llwyd: I am interested in what BaronessCorston said about this link person, if I can describethem in that way, between the courts and the defendant.Casting my mind back to when I started in the law,that is precisely what probation officers did before theywere buried in casework. Surely, that should be a rolefor a probation officer, should it not?Baroness Corston: Up to a point, yes. One of thesuccesses of the organisation I am talking about inBristol, Missing Link, is that this is the kind of workto which they have devoted themselves for 25 years,so they were kind of a natural choice. But I have tosay I have no quarrel with probation officers at all,although I know that there are probation officers whohave no idea that I have done a report and don’t knowanything about it. We had some graphic evidence fromone prison where, in the end, Liz arranged for a copyof my report to be put in the prison library so that, ifthe probation officers did not see it, at least the womenin prison would have access. Sometimes, of course,probation officers do not mention to the court that awoman has children, because that should make a bigdifference. When you are sentencing, you should lookat the needs and responsibilities of primary carers. “Isthere going to be somebody to collect the children fromschool if I send this woman to prison now?” Nobodythinks about that. Probation officers now probably