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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 6326 March 2013 Helen Grant MP, Ian Porée and Michael SpurrQ310 Chair: In a rather cumbersome sentence, yourdocument refers to “the scope, within existing financialconstraints, for improved sentencing options…thatwould give sentencers robust community sentencingoptions”. It is a peculiar sentence, but I think you aregetting at something you said earlier. What the courtswill do depends on what is available to the courts.Helen Grant: Yes, I think that is right.Q311 Jeremy Corbyn: I turn to the last section ofquestions, on “Transforming Rehabilitation” proposals.Do you think they should be incentivised specificallyfor women prisoners?Helen Grant: Ian is leading on this, so I will lethim make some comments. However, from what Ihave seen already in relation to these proposals, Iam very encouraged; in fact, I am very excited. The“Transforming Rehabilitation” document refers rightat the beginning to the need to consider the needsand priorities of women and says that they mustbe recognised. We have held two “TransformingRehabilitation” events specifically geared to femaleoffenders. I chaired and spoke at one and was able toparticipate in round-table meetings. We also have—sitting behind me, in fact—a senior official withextensive experience of dealing with female prisoners,who has been employed in the “TransformingRehabilitation” team to work with that team and withme to drive through that agenda. One of the positiveelements that I have seen coming through alreadyfrom the “Transforming Rehabilitation” agenda issomething I touched on before. At the minute, thereis no support and there are no requirements—there isno licence—when those who have served sentences ofless than 12 months are released. We are now sayingthat they should have support and that there shouldbe a lot more. As you know, more women prisonersthan men serve short sentences, so I am feeling veryencouraged, because I feel that female offenders willbe disproportionately benefited by that particularpolicy.Q312 Jeremy Corbyn: Do you think there is a casefor separating commissioning between the male andfemale prison system and estate?Helen Grant: I will let our commissioner respond tothat, if that is okay.Ian Porée: The rehabilitation reforms, in particular,provide an opportunity essentially to commission theseservices across a much broader range of providers fromall different sectors. Our priority will be to commissionthe services in a way that incentivises whoever theproviders are to reduce reoffending. I think there is anopportunity for them to offer services at a local leveland in a much more joined-up way. The benefit ofdoing that is that the overall scale of the system willmean that we will get a better set of services if wecommission for all offenders, as opposed to individualsegments. As Michael said, the women offenders area much smaller segment. However, as the Ministerhas just said, we will set very specific commissioningpriorities, focused on the needs of women, so that,whoever the successful future providers of theseservices are, they will have to demonstrate to us thatwhat they offer for women offenders is credible and islikely to meet the objectives of reducing reoffending.Q313 Jeremy Corbyn: Minister, earlier youmentioned the question of mentoring of prisoners,which I personally welcome and support. Thereseems to be quite a complicated set of organisationsand systems that every prisoner goes through, womenprisoners included. Is there any overall monitoringof what happens to each prisoner from the point ofconviction right through to the point of care afterrelease? It seems to me that there are an awful lot ofholes and gaps through which a prisoner can quiteeasily fall—at one level, not being met at the gate ofthe prison on the day of release, right through to postcare.Helen Grant: It is difficult.Michael Spurr: The whole point of the “TransformingRehabilitation” reforms is to address that veryissue. The point is that there is no one organisation,particularly for the short-sentenced offenders who havebeen in prison, that holds the ring, will provide thatsupport and can join up the range of good voluntary,third sector providers and others who work with thisgroup of offenders and ex-offenders. The whole pointis that there will be absolute clarity about who hasresponsibility in the future, because a provider willhave that responsibility. Whether or not they are paid forwhat they have done will depend partly on the resultsthat they achieve. They will, therefore, be incentivisedby their contract and by the payment mechanism toensure that they are co-ordinating, holding the ring andengaging with others in communities, because theywill be successful only if they do that.Q314 Jeremy Corbyn: From what point are theyengaged with the prison?Michael Spurr: We are still working through it, as wehave to respond to the consultation. This is my thought,as opposed to where we are in a Government response,because we have not concluded the Governmentresponse to the consultation. I think that, effectively,for anybody who is in an establishment for threemonths and less, the provider organisation will needto work with the individual in custody from at leastthe three-month point before discharge. They will thenwork with the individual going into the community aswell.We are looking at the options. One of the things weare considering—I think this is doable—is to identifyspecific releasing prisons. Having a stable prisonpopulation, as we have at the minute, allows us tothink about how we configure the estate. We have aspecific review for women, but this will be true forthe whole estate. I want to think about whether we canuse the places that we have rather better to supportresettlement than we have been able to do in the past.Again, that will help any provider. If we are able to saythat the releases will take place from particular prisons,they can concentrate their resources on those prisons.We have begun to do that a bit in Brixton. We arebringing people back to Brixton from the three Londonboroughs around Brixton to release them from thatestablishment. That is working well at the moment. Iwould like to extend that type of approach elsewhere;