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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 435 March 2013 Liz Calderbank, Val Castell and Liz Rijnenbergin the prison system. We have heard already aboutthe success of the intensive alternatives to custody.By the end of 2011, that project had been successfulin reducing the women’s population, and it has beenable to re-role one of the women’s prisons. We are atthe point now where we need to be working on smallresidential units for women so that they can work ontheir substance misuse and mental health issues can bedealt with. Short prison sentences always mean thatthose issues don’t get addressed. Communities need toown and work with these women and their families.Unless we can provide the judiciary with viablealternatives that are robust, women will continue tobe sent to prison, because it is felt that there is notsufficient protection in the community.Q210 Jeremy Corbyn: A couple of things comefrom that. One is what is being done to engage youngwomen before they get into the criminal justicesystem, and why we still have so many short sentences,which seem to be completely useless and probablycounterproductive in every sense. Linked to that iswhat discussions you are able to have with magistratesand judges about sentencing policy. There is anindication that some magistrates excessively sentencewomen, whereas they would not excessively sentencemen. I do not know. Is this your experience?Liz Rijnenberg: Yes. Probation trusts at a local levelhave very good relationships with magistrates and willkeep them regularly informed of new developments interms of services for women offenders, such as bespokeinterventions or specified activity requirements.The impetus, the strategy for driving that, which camefrom the NOMS women’s team, and all the work thatwas going on with local criminal justice boards, hasdissipated a bit. That needs to be driven forward ata strategic level. At the same time, it is important tohave greater awareness within the Church and withlocal politicians, in terms of the needs of women beingraised, because all that feeds into support for differentsentencing and new ways of doing things.Liz Calderbank: I am not able to support or deny, asyou suggest, that magistrates excessively sentencewomen—that there is some kind of ideologicalprocess—but that was certainly one of the things thatwe were very alive to when we did the report. It wasone of the hypotheses that we looked to test out.I cannot say that it does not happen, but in all the casesthat we looked at where we thought that the sentenceappeared on the face of it to be somewhat harsh, whenwe explored the case back—we were able to do thisbecause it was part of a joint inspection process—wefound very good reasons for why the sentence hadbeen imposed. I throw that into the mix, as it were. Itmay happen, and it may continue to happen, but wecertainly did not find any evidence of that.What we did find was evidence of women going intocustody for short terms of imprisonment for breachof orders, for offences that would not of themselveshave attracted a custodial sentence. If you look at thebulk of the women offenders subject to probation,although their level of breach is similar to that of theirmale counterparts, they will generally have committeda much lower level of offence than the men. Youwould not expect them to be receiving the same levelof custodial sentence on breach or sentences beingbreached at the same rate.Val Castell: I would add a couple of things. There arealways some who will just not comply with the sentencethat they are given. You have to have somewhere forthem to go. When we are telling somebody that theyhave a community sentence, we say, “You must complywith the terms of the order. If you don’t comply, youwill be brought back to court and sentenced in someother way, which may well include custody.” We areholding that up as the ultimate if they do not complywith the terms of their order. When people come intocourt and we are told in the breach report, “We can’ttell you much because we’ve never seen them. Theyhave not even arrived for the initial interview,” therecomes a point where you do not have anywhere muchelse to go. Bearing in mind what Liz said about lookingat the individual cases, it may appear on the face of itthat some things are harsh, but when you look at theindividual cases it turns out to have been perhaps notthe best sentence but the best available to the court atthe time.The amount of information that we get in court isvery much dependent on what a woman is preparedto divulge to the probation service and the defencesolicitor. Some find it very difficult to open up. It isanother area where, if you have a women’s centre andthey have been working with this woman beforehand,they will have been able to build a relationship with herand get her to divulge information that otherwise shewould not. We can only sentence on the information thatwe have available to us. We cannot make assumptions:this is a woman, and therefore she is a mother, she isvulnerable, and all the rest. We know that that may bethe case for the majority, but we cannot assume it. Wehave to work on the information that we have in court.Q211 Rehman Chishti: We have touched on mentalhealth. I have a few questions on mental health andaccommodation. How do probation trusts currentlyseek to provide for the accommodation and mentalhealth needs of women offenders?Liz Rijnenberg: With great difficulty. We work inpartnership, as far as we can. In London, there is theTogether Women project, and across the country thereare various mental health projects that work closelywith women’s community centres. It is a really difficultissue. We are looking forward to seeing the diversionschemes come into place in the courts from 2014.We also have the personality disorder strategy underway. However, there are still huge gaps in supportiveaccommodation for women and, as a consequence,many end up going into custody because there is noalternative for them.Liz Calderbank: A number of the women in the approvedpremises also have mental health problems. The workthat they do is generally of a very high standard. Theapproved premises offer a good service, but they areright only for a certain proportion of women, not all.The gap is in the more general provision.Liz Rijnenberg: Yes, it is in the more general provision.Liz is right. The six approved premises that we havefor women obviously do a very good job, and mostof them have mental health CPNs on site, but that is