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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 1715 January 2013 Peter Kilgarriff, Jackie Russell, Sharon Spurling and Joy DoalJackie Russell: There has been no engagement withWomen’s Breakout, which represents the women’ssector. I am not aware of any engagement with anyother agency. We did try through the Reducing ReoffendingThird Sector Advisory Group. That groupwas asked to produce a paper, which you probablyalso have referred to in your written evidence. Thework was managed by Clinks, so it might be in itssubmission. We were asked by the Minister to producea paper about the strategic issues for women. Oneof the strong recommendations that came out of thatpaper was that a strategic pulling together of all theagencies was absolutely vital. We took that paper tothe Minister, who made very positive noises about it,but then we seemed to hit a stall with the officers, so itnever went further. I have also asked to be personallyengaged in the development of the strategy.Nick de Bois: You were personally asked.Jackie Russell: I asked them if I could be involved,because I meet regularly with members of NOMS andthe Ministry of Justice. I have asked on a number ofoccasions where the strategy is, whether they need ourhelp, and whether we can possibly offer support. Atthis moment in time, no help has been asked for.Q87 Nick de Bois: I am a great fan of the role of thethird sector, and I sense that the Government are greatfans of it, too. It drives innovation and has a lot tocommend it. Were you given any sense of why therewas no wider engagement in that respect? Could youjust speculate for a minute?Jackie Russell: It is speculation. My background isas a chief officer in local government. I know howdifficult it gets when you widen the pool of peopleengaged in writing strategy. It is quite hard, but alsovery rewarding, because you get a whole range ofdifferent perspectives if you do that. There is a partof me that thinks: is it about the fact that it becomes aharder exercise? There is also a part of me that says:because there has been such a delay and we still do nothave a strategic position, was it ever really wanted? Ido not know, but I do know that we have not movedfurther.On the question that you asked Peter and Sharon aboutthe implications for women, in this document therhetoric says some helpful things, particularly aboutmentors. If every person leaving prison had a mentoron our model, we think that would be very good. Thedevil is always in the detail. What we see here are somewords that sound okay at this stage, but, as the processrolls out and the money follows it, it is a little worryingthat we might not see the high-quality mentoring that isneeded to support women particularly, but all prisoners.While the rhetoric sounds good, is the thinking behindit right? It is rather a shame that, when things like thatare put forward, you do not see examples of goodpractice as well. This document talks about mentoringas though it is not happening—whereas actually thereare some really good models it could have used. Inaddition, the document is in no way gendered.Q88 Nick de Bois: On your role of mentoring, I metthe Langley House Trust, for example, and listenedto how they do things. Do you see engagement,effectively, as meeting the offender at the gate?Jackie Russell: They see them through the gate. Theymeet people before they even come out of the gate, andas they come out, and then support them.Q89 Nick de Bois: And then you bring the multiagenciestogether. I am trying to understand your—Jackie Russell: Yes. What is really important aboutthe voluntary sector is that whatever time that womancomes out of prison, even if it is 4 o’clock on a bankholiday, somebody is there to make sure she is safe forthat night, that she has what she needs, and that shewill not have to go back in to where she came frombefore because it is the only life she knows.Nick de Bois: I understand.Q90 Chair: Ms Doal, you looked as if you might beabout to say something.Nick de Bois: I am sorry. I am not as sensitive to all theeye contact as I should be.Joy Doal: I would say that, rather than having a mentormeet somebody at the gate when they have done threeweeks in prison, stop sentencing people to three weeksin prison and put them in centres in the communityinstead. If you put a woman in the back of a Reliantvan, maybe on a Friday afternoon, and drive her 76miles to another prison, when she may not even havethought about who is going to pick up the childrenfrom school, she is in a panic. The whole thing is arecipe for disaster. That woman is left juggling all sortsof things, thinking, “Where are my kids? I don’t evenknow who’s looking after them tonight.” She does notknow what is going to happen to her house or all herstuff. Immediately she is popped there in the prison andis seen as a nuisance, because she is trying to juggle allthese things and getting herself more and more irate,thinking, “What on earth?” She is immediately labelled.You could cut down all that waste immediately just byusing the community projects that we’ve already gotto do a sensible, robust, specified activity requirement,which we run in the community. She stays with herfamily, and her children do not have to go into care.The huge cost of that is just mad. We know that thelevels of self-harm and suicide are very high for womenon short-term prison sentences. It creates a revolvingdoor. She comes out and her life is a complete messagain, because she’s lost her home, her furniture’s onthe skip and the kids are in care. What does she do?She goes back into prison. It is a revolving door, and itis just so expensive.Q91 Chair: That prompts the question: why did thecourt give her that prison sentence? Was it becausethere was not appropriate community provisionavailable, because the court did not know there wasadequate provision available, or because the courtwas not confident that the community provision wasappropriate or perhaps was a sufficient demonstrationthat society was not going to put up with what she hadbeen doing?Joy Doal: Probably all of those, but what happens ifyou disinvest from the projects that are doing well?We have women on specified activity requirements allthe time, and they do really well and complete theirorders. Our reoffending rate this year for women whohad completed those orders was 1%, compared with