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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 1915 January 2013 Peter Kilgarriff, Jackie Russell, Sharon Spurling and Joy Doalthat; we have just been told that it is too expensive andit will not happen. We are very disappointed that thatproposal has not been looked at seriously.Q102 Andy McDonald: Have there been anyimprovements in the regime? Have you been able toidentify any?Peter Kilgarriff: It is difficult to see them. Somewomen’s prisons have been closed since the publicationof the report. That has had the effect of sending womento prison further away from their homes and causingan increase in the numbers in some women’s prisons.That goes against what the chief inspector was sayingand what we believe.Q103 Andy McDonald: Presumably, if we are on atrajectory of trying to reduce the prison population andthe number of sentences being smaller, isn’t that goingto result in women who are in custody being muchfurther away from home in any event?Joy Doal: Not if there were local small units.Peter Kilgarriff: The norm that Baroness Corstonargued for, and that we would like to see, is that nonviolentfemale offenders are not sent to prison butare dealt with in the community. There seems to beevidence that not only is that cost-effective but it ismore effective in terms of reducing reoffending, andin terms of the well-being of the women. There isevidence that women who have offended who workwith women who have not offended—in other words,at a generic women’s centre, not a women’s centrethat is seen primarily as a women offenders centre—develop much better.Q104 Andy McDonald: Are you really saying that, ifwe are serious about trying to improve the position onreoffending, we should stop doing what doesn’t workand spread out what does work?Jackie Russell: Yes.Peter Kilgarriff: Yes, absolutely.Joy Doal: That would make sense.Q105 Mr Llwyd: Ms Doal and Ms Spurling, wouldyou describe your particular projects, with a bit aboutthe history, the actual work and the funding?Sharon Spurling: Support for Women AroundNorthumberland got together to bid in 2009 when thesecond phase of the money from the Corston coalitioncame about. What made us a little different was thearea we worked in. The county of Northumberland—I’ve got to get this right, haven’t I?—is 5000 squarekilometres with a population of 310,000 and bigareas of rural living and rural isolation, with somepockets of quite severe deprivation. We saw that therecommendations for a women’s centre would notwork in Northumberland, so we developed a virtualwomen’s centre, if you like. At that time we calledit the virtual one‐stop shop. Because of the diversityof Northumberland and the women and communitieswithin it, we wanted to develop a partnership rather thanhave just one organisation. The organisation I work for,Escape Family Support, works with drug and alcoholusers on addiction, and their families and carers, whichis great for a cohort of women but not for everybody.We also got together with the Women’s Health AdviceCentre based in south-east Northumberland, becausethey had a more generic and holistic approach aroundwomen’s health and well-being; Fourth Action, which isa social enterprise that works in north Northumberlandmentoring women into employment and training;and finally Relate. When we first came up with thatidea it sounded a bit odd; everybody thinks aboutrelationships and repair. Relate was about that, but italso had expertise in counselling—generic counsellingand sexual therapy—so we brought those partnerstogether and put our bid in for Northumberland.We hit the ground running in about February 2010. Werealised at that point that the monitoring and evaluationwas not great for all the projects. We were feedinginto the centre but not really getting much back. Inour first year we decided to bring in an independentevaluator, Dr Chris Hartworth of Barefoot Researchand Evaluation. He was able to say that at the end ofthe first year we had a 70% reduction in reoffendingfor the women we worked with. We had about 122referrals over the year. Those were women who hadoffended or who were at risk of offending, and alsowomen who had offended again and again. We builtthe project from there.We have some particular issues in Northumberland. Wehave a real problem around supportive accommodationfor women, which is almost non-existent. Womenhave real issues to do with travelling around to accessservices. Our premise was always to take the serviceto the women. That would mean that, if we had togo to Kielder Forest to see a woman, that is what wewould do; if it was in Berwick or Amble, our workerswould go out and see the woman in the community.That really helps to engage women back in their localcommunities as well, so they become a bit more valuedin the community. People see that they are tacklingsome difficult issues and coming out the other side.I want to describe for Members the distances aroundNorthumberland. If we had a women’s centre in justone place—in, say, Blyth, which is in south-eastNorthumberland—and we had to bring a woman fromBerwick in to the service, it would be the equivalentof saying to a woman sitting here, “You need to go toBrighton to get that service.” That is never going tohappen; those women are never going to do that. Inrural communities in particular, it is so important thatthe services are delivered in those local communities—and by people from those communities as well. Oneof the ways we get around the expense of travel isto employ people from those local communities orwe develop mentors or volunteers who live in thosecommunities.Chair: It is music to my ears to hear there isrecognition that you can’t meet the needs of somebodyin Berwick—or for that matter in Haltwhistle orKielder—just because there is a centre in Blyth. It isnot feasible.Q106 Mr Llwyd: I am acutely aware of the problemsof delivering in the rural setting, and what you sayis quite encouraging. The model seems to workthroughout the large expanse.Sharon Spurling: Yes.