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

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Women offenders: after the Corston Report 948% have drug or alcohol problems, 40% have experienced domestic violence, sexual abuseor rape and 8% of women are involved in prostitution. 52% of the women engaging withprojects have children. 14A distinct approach13. Baroness Corston’s vision was for her report to initiate the creation of a “distinct,radically different, visibly-led, strategic, proportionate, holistic, woman-centred, integratedapproach”. 15 Women’s Breakout believed that it is now agreed that the case has been wellmade that: i) the majority of women imprisoned should not be; ii) to prevent and reducecrime committed by women gender specific approaches delivered in women onlycommunity based organisations work best; and iii) to achieve equitable outcomes for themajority of women, they need to receive different interventions to the majority of men. 16The Probation Chiefs’ Association, Prison Governors’ Association and Michael Spurr ofNOMS agreed that the Corston Report had given a huge impetus to improving awarenessthat women require a different and distinct approach. 17 As we noted above, there wascertainly a significant consensus about the distinct needs of women in the evidence wereceived.14. There are voices which reject that consensus. In a Westminster Hall debate on 16thOctober, Philip Davies MP described the women offenders agenda as “one of the starkestexamples of how politically correct this country has become” and stated that “all thehysteria surrounding women in the justice system is completely without foundation”. 18 Hesuggested the agenda was pinned on a series of myths, including that: i) women are verylikely to be sent to prison and are more likely than men to be given a custodial sentence; ii)women are imprisoned for short sentences and not very serious offences; iii) women areremanded in custody but not subsequently sentenced to custody; iv) prison separatesmothers from their children, which unfairly punishes them; and v) women are treatedmore harshly than men in the criminal justice system. 1915. In his evidence to us he cites a range of official statistics in support of some of thesearguments which showed, for example, that: a higher proportion of men are givenimmediate custody than women; these men receive higher average sentence lengths thanwomen; women are imprisoned for a range of offences, including violent offences; men aremore likely to be remanded in custody; the number of women in prison has fallen as apercentage of the total prison population; a large number of children are separated fromtheir fathers as a result of imprisonment; and many women are not looking after theirchildren at the time they are sentenced. 20 This evidence does not take into account thestatistics cited above that indicate that within categories of offence women tend to commit14 All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in the penal system, Women in the penal system: Second report onwomen with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system, London, 201115 The Corston Report, cover page16 Ev 6917 Q 226 [Mr McLennan Murray], Q 273 [Mr Spurr], Ev 12018 Ev w10119 HC Deb, 16 Oct 2012, Col 32WHff20 Ev w135
10 Women offenders: after the Corston Reportoffences of lesser seriousness than men, or other factors that might be taken into account insentencing including previous offending history and relevant mitigating factors. Forexample, Helen Grant MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, Women andEqualities, acknowledged in her evidence to us that women offenders are a “highlyvulnerable group”; she recognised that they often commit crime because of theirvulnerability, for example, as a result of domestic violence, sexual abuse and mental healthproblems, and because of “earlier failures to protect and support them”, and that they aremore likely to be primary carers when sentenced. 2116. In our view there is general agreement that the majority of women offenders pose littlerisk to public safety and that imprisonment is frequently an ineffective response. It is alsonow well recognised that it is not permissible for women offenders to be dealt with in thesame way as men within a criminal justice system designed for the majority of offenders.This is not about treating women more favourably or implying that they are less culpable.Rather it is about recognising that women face very different hurdles from men in theirjourney towards a law abiding life, responding appropriately to the kinds of problemsthat women in the criminal justice system bring into it, and taking the requisite action tobe effective in addressing their offending behaviour.21 Qq 253, 257
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