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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 1118 December 2012 A, B, C, D and Kate JohnsonQ47 Chair: What happened to them while you werein prison?D: I remember the day I was arrested. The baby wasjust seven months old and they took him away fromme, and my grandson, who is disabled. When I cameback, I couldn’t get them back.Q48 Chair: So they were taken into care.D: Yes. My grandson is back with me, but he’s movedout because he’s 18. He is 18 now. The social workeris looking after him, but there are two granddaughtersnow. They are into care. It is very hard for me becausethey know me very well and now I can only see themonce in a month.Q49 Chair: Does anybody else have familyexperiences that are relevant?C: I was quite lucky. I am unusual in that I was oneof the few women that I knew in prison, on bothoccasions that I was there, who only had one child.It was very unusual to meet a women in prison whodid not have several children, very often with differentpartners, very often children in care or children aboutto be placed in care if they didn’t have supportingfamily. I had one daughter, and my siblings closedranks around me really and helped with my daughter,but there were a lot of women who didn’t have strongfamilies or had several children. Most of them whowere in prison who I knew actually knew they weregoing to prison, so they had gone to court and there hadbeen a probation report requested by the court. Thenthey’ve gone back for sentencing, so the majority hadactually been able to prepare to go into prison. Therearen’t that many women that are literally arrested andthen sent to court and given a custodial sentence. But,even so, if you haven’t got family who will supportyou, and most women in prison have been failed byan education system, social care or social services, orgone through care and all those systems have failedthem, they don’t have the life skills to problem-solve ifthey have children.Kate Johnson: I have a client, a woman whom Iworked with recently, who was recalled back to prisonfor breaching her licence conditions. She missed twoprobation appointments. At the time she was livingin Hounslow and had to report to Guildford for herprobation. She was living in Hounslow in a bed andbreakfast because she was fleeing domestic violence.Her newborn baby had been removed from her whenhe was 10 days old and she had access four days aweek. She didn’t have any additional help with costor travel. She was coming off drugs and dealing withdomestic violence. Because she then missed these twoappointments and had no way of contacting probation,she was recalled and her child has now been adoptedwhile she was in prison. She was recalled for 14 daysat the end of her licence. She was then released. She isno longer able to go back to the accommodation thatwas given to her in Hounslow because she is deemedintentionally homeless, so she is now back with herabusive partner. The only support she receives is fromus. Because she is no longer on licence, she doesn’t getany support from probation and she doesn’t have anycontact with her child now at all.Q50 Steve Brine: A, you said it is very hard to notreoffend. Given the utter failure of the system fromwhat you have told us, which is quite shocking, is therean element in your mind that thinks, frankly, it wouldbe easier to reoffend to get back into the routine thatyou know, given that you have done 18 years of it?A: I wouldn’t have to reoffend. You just have to go toprobation and say, “I’m not coping”, and they wouldput me back inside anyway. But when you’re sat thereon your own in a flat with nothing—I have seen it overthe years many a time—there are girls knocking on thedoor at Christmas to get back in prison.Q51 Mr Buckland: A, you are on a licence, are younot?A: I am a life licence, yes.Q52 Mr Buckland: So you can be recalled—A: At any time.Mr Buckland: That’s right.C: There are two very good women’s open prisons. Iwas reading an article in The Economist on the traincoming here. It is not a paper known for its tolerantview of theatre, but it was talking about theatre inprison as a rehabilitation. Brilliant article. One ofthe open prisons cited had a reoffending rate of 7%because the women have a staged introduction backinto society. 80% of them leaving prison are already inwork or in education, or they are going into training.It is a staggered approach, and it just seems crazy thatgirls can come in and out of prison three or four timesa year for a month and go out with nothing, and, as Asays, it is much easier sometimes to reoffend.Q53 Rehman Chishti: D and C, you talked about theissue of mental health. When in prison did you haveaccess to psychiatric help? I know in public, if youare outside at the moment, you can either be givena section 2 or a section 3 mental health order, whereyou get treatment for a certain period of time, and thatcould be simply for your own health. Was there such astructured mental health approach in prison, and afterthat, were you directed to somewhere where you couldget that continued mental health treatment?Kate Johnson: Under sections 2 and 3, you have to bea significant risk to yourself or others and you have tobe unwilling to access treatment to be detained underthat section, so that is quite different.Q54 Rehman Chishti: Sure. With regard to the otherargument about mental health, where you have mentalhealth concerns in prison, were you given treatment forthat, and, also, when you came out were you directedto the right place to get continued help?D: Yes; I was given treatment in the prison, and thenwhen I came out my GP sent me to counselling.C: But, D, I guess when you say “treatment”, you meanmedication.D: Medication, yes.C: No counselling.D: No counselling, no.C: No, there was nothing like that, although myexperience in Bronzefield this year, which is a privateprison, is that they have a wonderful alcohol supportworker, an alcohol nurse and an outreach alcohol officer.