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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 5326 March 2013 Helen Grant MP, Ian Porée and Michael Spurrcrushes self-confidence and self-esteem, which arethe prerequisites, of course, for aspiration, motivation,success and, as far as we are concerned here, stoppingreoffending. Unless you can get that self-confidenceback and get rid of the perpetrator—the person who ispulling you down—the chances of being able to moveon are much reduced. I hope that has answered thequestion. I have seen an awful lot of good practice.Q255 Jeremy Corbyn: I agree with you aboutHolloway; it is in my area and I have visited it. Whatare the weak areas in treatment of women prisoners, inyour view, from what you have observed so far? Whatdo we not do well?Helen Grant: Can I bring my colleagues into this?I have with me the chief executive of NOMS, onmy right, and Ian Porée, who is dealing with our“Transforming Rehabilitation” programme and is incharge of commissioning. They may well have someinteresting comments on where we perhaps need to dobetter.Michael Spurr: I think we have been getting better attargeting our interventions to meet the specific needsof women, but there is still more to do on that. Whatwe call our philosophy of segmentation is really abouttrying to identify the specific needs of an offendergroup and then ensuring that we are putting resourcesinto meeting those needs. For a long time, we did notdo anything like sufficient work with women.Over recent years, we have accelerated the work wehave done to look at the specific needs of women. Thathas led us to develop particular programmes such as theCARE programme, which is running at Foston Hall atthe minute and will run at New Hall. It targets womenwith complex needs after offences of violence againstthe person and is aimed specifically at those particularwomen. We are identifying the people who need thattype of programme. For example, we have been doingwork in the community with Women’s Aid to developthe freedom programme for women who have beeninvolved with domestic violence. Again, that is a veryspecific, targeted programme to meet particular needs.There is still further work to do in that area, as we getbetter at understanding it. There is still not sufficientevidence about what the specific needs of women are;to be quite frank, there is a frustrating lack of it. Onlyin recent years have we really targeted the group andlooked at what are the gender-specific issues that weshould be tackling. I think that is the area for furtherdevelopment, although I want to make the point thatwe have been tackling that area and, I would have tosay, have made some considerable progress in it.Q256 Chair: Can I be clear about your ministerialresponsibility? When the Secretary of State came in, hetalked about being responsible for women in prisons.Does that extend to women offenders—women in thecriminal justice system—generally? That is a questionto the Minister.Helen Grant: That is certainly my understanding of it.Q257 Chair: This is really a question for Mr Spurr.Might it not be a good thing if you were more readyto be frank about the weaknesses in the system,rather than rushing to claim the credit for the areasof improvement? Obviously, we are also interested inthose.Helen Grant: Are you addressing Mr Spurr?Chair: Any of you can answer the question, but itarose out of Mr Spurr’s earlier reply.Michael Spurr: I did say that I thought we needed to domore in that area. Equally, I wanted to say that it wasnot something we had just thought about and were notworking on. The response to the question was that I dothink we need to do more to target the specific needs ofwomen. I do not think I was being overly-defensive—Iwas trying to demonstrate that we had recognised theissue and were working on it. If I may say so, I do notthink it is unreasonable for somebody in my position tosay, “We have identified something that is wrong andare trying to put it right.” If I were not doing that, youwould be asking me why not.Helen Grant: On that matter, I think considerableimprovements and advancement have happened inthe last six years, since Jean Corston’s report. A lothas happened; I may be asked about that later. Thereis also recognition of the fact that, just because therehave been improvements, it does not mean that we arethere. Sadly, women are continuing to get involvedin crime, chaos, havoc and family breakdown, withchildren going into care and repossessions, and thereare still a lot of women in prison. As long as that is thesituation and as long as I am responsible for this part ofthe portfolio, of course we will have to do more. Thatbrings me back to why we have published the strategicpriorities. It would, I hope, explain some of the contentas well.Q258 Andy McDonald: Good morning, Minister.We have heard from a lot of witnesses in the course ofour inquiry that, effectively, in the absence of visibleleadership, progress on the Corston agenda has stalled.Do you accept that, before your appointment, the MOJdid not give women’s offending the attention requiredto maintain progress on the Corston recommendations?Helen Grant: No, I don’t accept that at all. I thinkthere has been considerable movement on the Corstonrecommendations. The Government have accepted 40out of 43 of them. Michael at NOMS has implementedmany of them. We have embedded gender-specificstandards, training and initiatives right across theprison regime. Michael referred to a superb facility thatruns in conjunction with Women’s Aid that really helpswomen in the prison regime to address issues such asdomestic violence. We have also ended routine fullsearching of females. We have established a womenspecificconditional caution. I think that is a very goodinitiative, because it allows a woman to be effectivelyassessed—to have a full needs assessment at one of thewomen’s centres. We have actually reduced the femaleestate by 400. NOMS has invested £3.78 million in thefunding of 31 women’s centres around the country, thevast majority of which are doing a very good job oftackling the root cause of female offending. I wouldhave to disagree—I think a lot has been done. I ampleased with it, but of course we need to do more.Q259 Andy McDonald: How have your approachesto other Government Departments on these mattersbeen received? Is there the critical mass of women