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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 15Tuesday 15 January 2013Members present:Sir Alan Beith (in the Chair)Steve BrineRehman ChishtiJeremy CorbynNick de BoisMr Elfyn LlwydAndy McDonald________________Examination of WitnessesWitnesses: Peter Kilgarriff, Chair, Corston Independent Funders Coalition, Jackie Russell, Director, Women’sBreakout, Sharon Spurling, Deputy CEO, Escape Family Support, Support for Women Around Northumberland(SWAN) project, and Joy Doal, CEO, the Anawim project, gave evidence.Q74 Chair: Welcome. We are very grateful to thefour of you for coming to help us with our work onwomen offenders. We welcome Peter Kilgarriff fromthe Corston Independent Funders Coalition, JackieRussell from Women’s Breakout, Sharon Spurlingfrom Support for Women Around Northumberland—which in my view is a particularly good thing to do—and Joy Doal, the name of whose organisation is solong that I cannot remember what the acronym standsfor.Joy Doal: It is not an acronym; it is an old Hebrewword.Q75 Chair: The fact that it is printed in capital lettersin my notes made me think it must be an acronym.What does it mean?Joy Doal: It means the poor and the oppressed—literally, the little ones or the forgotten ones.Q76 Chair: Is yours a church-based organisation?Joy Doal: Yes, Catholic-based.Q77 Chair: In the course of today’s session we planto focus on the adequacy of community provision,including women’s community centres for women inthe criminal justice system and on the edge of it. Itmight be helpful to give you the opportunity to providean overall assessment of the progress on implementingthe Corston recommendations. I am sure all of youhave views on that—perhaps quite strong ones—and aquick word from you on that would be a useful startingpoint. Who volunteers to start?Peter Kilgarriff: I will throw in my pennyworth. Tomy mind, there is no doubt that the Corston reviewheightened awareness of the whole issue about womenin the criminal justice system. It underlined thedifferences between women and men in the criminaljustice system and pointed to some answers. It alsoled eventually to some money coming forth from theTreasury—via Maria Eagle, as you know—whichenabled some flesh to be put on the bones in terms ofthe creation of women’s centres. Joy and my colleagueswill know more about this, but initially they werethought of as one-stop shops that would help with thecomplex issues that women face, of which offending,in our minds, is more of a symptom than an outcome.It raised the understanding of these problems and ledto the creation of a network of centres. It led to thecreation of the infrastructure body, which Jackie headsup, and the Corston Independent Funders Coalition,which joined with the Ministry of Justice to help fundthe centres for the first two or three years. There werealso other practical things to do with the prison regimes,on which it cast a light, and which were changed.There were some achievements, but those have nowstalled. We have lost our champions in Government;we have lost people who are really interested in thisissue. It has fallen down the priority list, and thecentres are under great threat in terms of their financialviability. We are talking to NOMS about this. One ofthe roles of CIFC is to try to keep open the channelswith Government officials and Ministers. We aretalking, but at the moment we are getting slightly moreand more depressed.Jackie Russell: At the time when the Corston report waspublished we saw some quick wins, and undoubtedlythere has been some progress. Assessment of progressis: yes, there has been a little bit. As Peter said, theleaders and shakers around that agenda have changed.As they have changed, the agenda has not been pickedup again. We saw some quick wins with stuff that wasshort, easier to do, and located in the criminal justicesystem. But what we have not seen is sustainabilityof change, or any real engagement of the other majorplayers around women offenders’ lives that the Corstonreport explained so well. Peter is quite right. It feelsas if the process has stalled. There was some earlyprogress but it has not been driven home.Joy Doal: Having the women’s strategy team in placewas a huge plus, and its loss has been noticeable. Thefact that that brought together people from Health andother Departments to try to break down some of thatsilo thinking was good. That seems to be lost now, withthat team going, which is a shame. What is also beinglost is what came out of the Corston review: the moneyto set up one-stop shops. That enabled us to work withwomen who were at risk of falling into the criminaljustice system. You could do some early preventativework with those women who had multiple and complexissues but had not yet been caught for an offence, soyou could divert them much more cheaply, and alsohelp them move on in their lives without having gota criminal record. It is a lot easier to get somebodyinto employment who has not got a criminal record.At the other end of the spectrum, women on the cuspof custody, who were getting five days or seven daysin prison, could be diverted into the women’s centresfor community sentences. Both of those ends of the