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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 718 December 2012 Rt Hon Baroness Corston and Liz Hogarth OBEhave enough to do with offenders, and sometimes thesewomen‐specific services are ones to which women aremore likely to relate.Q22 Rehman Chishti: In relation to sentencing,Baroness Corston, previously you did not recommenda separate sentencing framework for women. Wouldyou now consider this the right time to revisit that?Baroness Corston: What I said at the time was that Iwas not going to suggest that there should be one, but Iwas not going to rule out the fact that there might needto be one. The reason why I said that was because thereseemed to be so much institutional misunderstandingof the reality of most women’s lives and responsibility.I have just referred to what happened to me. Assomebody who used to work as a lawyer, you havea client and you say, “You are likely to get a noncustodialsentence.” So your client is perfectly happy,and all of a sudden you are sent to prison. If you are awoman, you are held in the cells longest of all becausethe men are always dealt with first. It is 10.30 at nightbefore you actually get to prison, and you know thatyour child was outside school at 3.15 pm and therewas nobody to meet that child. Can you imagine thestate you would be in? The needs and responsibilitiesof primary carers are absolutely crucial and should beat the forefront of the minds of sentencers. It is difficultto have this argument with them of course because,for people like us, you are accused of interfering withthe judiciary. I have to say that some judges now areabsolutely superb. I can think of one judge in Bristol,His Honour Judge Horton, who has taken this strategycompletely to heart and implements it when dealingwith women offenders.What made a very big difference during the lastGovernment was that Vera Baird, who of course wasa distinguished QC and did so much to change thelaw on battered women who kill before she came intoParliament, as a law officer, with that professionalbackground, brought in a conditional caution forwomen. I had thought of recommending a conditionalcaution for women, but I thought nobody is goingto accept that, so I didn’t. But she, as a law officer,brought it in. We had this pilot in two areas; I haveforgotten which ones actually. I think one was thenorth‐east. Women who had committed some kind oflow level offence of the kind I have been discussingwere told, “We will caution you on the condition thatyou attend a women’s centre for an assessment and thatyou follow through the course that is set out for you.”That is an informal change of sentencing frameworkand has been very successful.Q23 Rehman Chishti: Forgive me if I have missedthe point, but, in terms of clarity, are you then sayingthat that system, which was introduced previously inthe north, should now be spread out across the country?Baroness Corston: There is a very good argument forthat, yes. The argument for it is unanswerable.Q24 Rehman Chishti: Secondly, to both of you, isthere appropriate community-based provision for themanagement of women offenders who represent ahigher risk of harm to the public?Baroness Corston: It has been said, throughGovernment, that 3.2% of the female prison populationpresent a risk or a high risk to other people. Liz maywell be able to talk to you about this in a minute becauseshe is a person who worked in Holloway and hadpersonal experience. There are some of those womenwho will probably never come out of prison, and, forthem, the kind of prison regime that we currently haveis entirely right. But, if it is 3.2% of women, we aretalking about 140 women at any one time, so it is asmall number of people who would need to be kept insecure circumstances. I can accept that, for them, therewould be a price to pay in terms of family unity, but, inthe interests of justice and a public acceptance of theseriousness of a crime, that is a price that we wouldhave to pay.Liz Hogarth: In terms of those women who do comeout, who have been high risk and have gone intoprison, it is good that—looking at things like approvedpremises—there has been a slight shift. Back whenI was doing work in 2008, again we found it veryhard because approved premises were for high riskoffenders and it felt a bit like women did not fit thatmould. They were not so much high risk, but theywould come out of prison on licence or in terms ofbail conditions. They had very high needs in terms ofmental health and drugs, which could make them a riskin that sense. They needed slightly different provision,and it was good after 2008 that that was looked at andthat medium risk women offenders could be consideredfor approved premises for women.Having said that, though, there is still the issue thatthe small numbers of women can be seen as beingproblematic for us in terms of policy. Because, if youonly have relatively few women needing approvedpremises, those premises are few and they are milesfrom home. An awful lot of women say they wouldrather stay in prison than go somewhere away fromhome. It sounds ironic in a way, but, when they havefamily contacts, it might be easier for those familycontacts to get to a prison than to approved premises.It is good it is out there. Some very good and reallyinventive work is done with approved premises likeAdelaide House, but they have to fight very hard tohave their voices heard, because the norm is that itwould be male high risk offenders and they are verydifferent in terms of their needs.Q25 Jeremy Corbyn: What form of commissioningarrangements do you see as the best way of dealingwith women offenders and those at risk of reoffending,because you mentioned, for example, the issue of,potentially, a woman prisoner from Truro, where thenearest women’s prison would be Eastwood Park,which is well north of Bristol; I know the place. Whatwould be your preferred option for commissioningarrangements?Baroness Corston: My preferred option for womenwho have committed the kind of crimes to which wehave referred—generally petty offences—would bethat there should be local provision. There should besmall units dispersed throughout the country, just for asmall number of women. I do not accept the argumentabout cost because I have seen that it works in Scotland,and I don’t see why it can’t work here.