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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 515 March 2013 Nick Hardwick and Eoin McLennan Murrayrates—and more effective in terms of changing thelives of these women.Q246 Gareth Johnson: The reason why I raise thatquestion is that prison governors have a crucial rolein preventing reoffending, working with people whilethey are in custody. I understand that prison governorsare frustrated at seeing the same faces coming backagain and again. Surely, it is for prison governors todeal with the people whom they have and do what theycan to improve their anti-reoffending programmes. Itis not to say, “Well, four out of five of these peopleshould not be here, and the courts have got it wrong.”Eoin McLennan Murray: Again, you are right. Thatis exactly what prison governors do. Regrettably,however, most of what we do is ineffective, partlybecause they are such short sentences and because ofthe resources required. There are resources, but you donot have the time to meet some of the needs of thewomen, and they could be met more appropriatelyelsewhere. There is a better solution to this. That is thepoint that we are making, but at the moment we seemto be fixed on locking people up, and we do not believethat that serves society.Nick Hardwick: May I add one brief point? There isone group of women in prison now who definitelyshould not be, and that is at the more extreme end,with women who have the most acute mental healthproblems. It seems to me that they should be cared forin a hospital rather than in a custodial establishment.If you go to a place like the care unit at Styal, wherethe level of mental health distress is extreme, I defyanyone to come out of that and say that prison is anappropriate place for these people. They should becared for in a hospital.Gareth Johnson: We need to make that point, MrChairman.into the area in which they are held. If you are a womanoffender who lives in the west midlands conurbation,there is no local prison in that area from which youcan make the link between the prison establishmentand the community. You are likely to have womengoing back to that area from a whole range of differentestablishments, and it is not clear from the proposalsas they currently stand how that link will be madebetween the prisons and community provision. That isa problem for all prisons, but it is particularly acute forwomen’s prisons. If you ask the MOJ, they will say,“Yes, we recognise that that is an area where we stillhave to do more work.” They will acknowledge thepoint, but I would say that they need to get on with itand solve that problem.Q248 Chair: Is it not the reality that the proposalshave been drawn up to create better links and morethrough-the-gates care for male prisoners but that,when applying it to the female estate, one immediatelycomes up against the fact that the female estate, inmost people’s view, is wrongly configured?Nick Hardwick: Precisely so. It will be difficultenough in the male estate. There is talk, which wouldbe a good thing, about trying to organise prisons ona regional basis, but you are still going to have maleprisoners held in prisons away from the areas to whichthey will relocate. Unless you radically change wherewomen are held, the women’s estate, that problem isgoing to be more acute.The whole business about prisons, and women’sprisons in particular, has almost been forgotten in someof the thinking, and there needs to be some catching-upon it. It goes back to the point about leadership. Youfeel that you are always having to remind people aboutthis issue, rather than it being at the forefront of theirminds.Q247 Chair: What are the implications for the post-Corston agenda of the Government’s decision jointlyto commission rehabilitative provision across prisonsand probation?Nick Hardwick: I have said on a number of occasionsthat there is a hole in the Government’s thinking moregenerally about rehabilitation, because what happens inprisons seems to be very much a second order priorityin the proposals as a whole. The proposals neglect therole that prisons should play in preparing prisoners forrelease and reducing the risk that they reoffend. Thereis much to applaud in the proposals. The role thatprisons will play, and how the community providerswill link up with what happens in prisons generally,has not been properly thought through yet.Things are more acute for women’s prisons. The reasonis this. Because of the location of prisons as they arenow, women prisoners are less likely to be released________________Q249 Chair: Does that have any implications for theexisting prison and criminal justice joint inspectionregimes? You do quite a lot of joint inspections, do younot?Nick Hardwick: We need to see the arrangements indetail, but we work very closely with the probationinspectorate at the moment and we go into prisonstogether. That is quite profitable, because, certainlywhen we are looking at rehabilitation, at the momentwhat we tend to look at is the process—they are doingthe sorts of things, or not doing them, that ought tobe improved. If we can link that up with what theprobation inspectorate is doing in the community,we can come to a more definite conclusion, and thatwould be helpful. The relationships that we have at themoment can be developed to work in the new system.I am looking forward to that.