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

Ev 46 Justice Committee: Evidence5 March 2013 Liz Calderbank, Val Castell and Liz RijnenbergThat will continue, and the inspection programme willpull on other providers as they come into the field. Ouraim is to undertake this as seamlessly as possible.We are very committed to any organisation that workswith offenders being subject to the same independentscrutiny, with it being held to account for deliveringthe same standards of practice. That is what we willbe looking for. We will not be looking for any kind ofdrop in performance during the period of the transition;we will be looking for performance to be maintainedand improved. That will be our aim.Q222 Seema Malhotra: The Magistrates Associationhas been quite critical. Is there anything that you wouldwant to add?Val Castell: Our problem is what you define as a result.We are very much aware that for some offenders areduction in offending is actually a much bigger resultthan complete desistence is for others. It is not a purelynumerical thing. You can be succeeding with somebodyjust by having reduced their offending slightly if thereis somebody who has been offending persistently.There is also a difficulty with what you define asoffending. Are we only talking about the offendersthat come to court? People can commit offences andbe dealt with by way of out-of-court fines or cautions;other people commit offences and sometimes shopswill not even prosecute shoplifters but go after themfor money in a completely separate way. They havestill offended, but that is not being counted. That iswhere our fears lie—in how you count the results.Liz Calderbank: It goes back to what I was saying aboutpayment by results. It could be both an opportunity anda threat. A lot of it depends, as Val has been saying, onhow you define the results. It is an opportunity to focusattention on the result that you want.One of them clearly must be a reduction in offending,but how do you get there in terms of people who areliving very complex and chaotic lives? If you set thebar too high, it will have the impact of excluding themfrom the services and pushing them towards custodyagain. If you set it at a more incremental level, andyou look at the different factors that we know work toaddress criminogenetic needs, factors that contributetowards offending, then you have an opportunity forfocusing services on those.A lot of it depends on how you actually set up thepayment-by-results schemes. You also have to take intoaccount the level of work required in resourcing them.I spoke to a voluntary group getting women who hadoffended back into work. The challenge was having togo through all the things that you would expect—ofgetting them a job, but once they had got the job ofactually making sure that they turned up every dayuntil they got into a pattern of doing it. That involvedgoing and getting them every day, taking them to workand staying long enough to make sure that they had gotover the initial thing of going in.Val Castell: There is also a lot work being done on “preoffenders”,women who are at risk of offending. Ofcourse, work that is done for that might not even showup in the stats, because they will not have committedoffences yet, but if they are prevented from doing sothat will reduce the overall offending rate. That, surely,is of merit.Liz Calderbank: Ultimately, these things will save usall resources. They will save resources on criminaljustice, mental health and across a whole range ofthings, but they are expensive.Q223 Seema Malhotra: You talked about theopportunity of payment by results. Are there waysin which you could see payment by results possiblyacting as a lever for gender-specific provision beingmade more rationally across the country?Liz Calderbank: Yes. If it was written in that way, itcould be.Liz Rijnenberg: Improved accommodation, mentalhealth—Liz Calderbank: Yes, and pulling in services. Someof the women’s centres are very keen on the notion ofpayment by results because they are very confident inthe services that they offer and see it as an opportunityof getting some regular sustained funding. Of course,that does depend on whether what they are offering isrecognised within the scheme.Liz Rijnenberg: A binary measure for women wouldnot take account of improvements in their well-being,or their psychological and social factors, or give someconsideration to the wider outcomes, such as that therecould be fewer children in care and fewer young girlsgoing into the criminal justice system. If PBR could bebuilt around something wider, that would help.Liz Calderbank: The threat is that, if it is justrebrokering the existing arrangements, it could end upexcluding more than including. That is the threat.Q224 Graham Stringer: Given a blank piece of paper,how would you configure secure and communitybasedprovision for women offenders?Val Castell: Very quickly, there are probably not thatmany who need very secure accommodation. I wouldtend to concentrate on putting the high security in placeonly where it is really needed, and try to focus more onsupport and assistance for the others.Liz Calderbank: I would put as much into preventionas possible, and use secure units, where necessary,as a specialist provision. I would put more on theprevention side, particularly in relation to schools.Liz Rijnenberg: Yes, a strong focus on prevention, andensuring that where there are families with existingoffenders the children are supported. We want adynamic approach to women when they are presentingwith a difficulty. A range of resources surroundingthem at any particular given moment when there is adifficulty would be the best way of solving some of thelonger-term problems. Quite often, at that crucial pointwhen they need help, they do not get it and things getworse. It is something about redesigning our approachto this particular group of women offenders.Q225 Graham Stringer: Given those views, whatdifferent strategy for women offenders would it lead to,compared with the suggestions in the “TransformingRehabilitation” paper?Val Castell: It fits in quite nicely. What the“Transforming Rehabilitation” proposals are goingto lead us towards is a bit more of a blurring betweencommunity and custodial outcomes. That couldwork two ways. It may mean that there will be less