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

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Ev 72Justice Committee: Evidence— Some Probation Trusts have approached Women’s Community services with a clear messagethat their work would need to cover a wider geographical area with less budget and this messagehas not been supported by a service costing.5.5 This demonstrates the importance of central ownership of this young agenda, and also demonstrates thatit is too soon to transfer responsibility to local commissioning especially so at a time when proposals forchange are underway (Effective Probation Services consultation) and resources are being squeezed.5.6 The future is not clear, but at the time of writing there is cause for optimism. There have been a numberof disturbing “messages” relating to future funding of services for women offenders, but we are now hopefulthat there will soon be confirmation that the budget that was identified for 2012–13 will be available toProbation Trusts as part of their base budget in future years; and that there will continue to be a level of coordinationof data and services on a national scale, with a requirement to commission the model that ourprojects represent.5.7 While we welcome this, the financial support has been available to some 31 projects. This does not giveadequate national coverage, and there is a need for a coherent strategic approach that shifts resources from theexpensive option of custody to a national network of community based provision. This requires the engagementand commitment of police, prisons, courts, local authorities and third sector providers and a reorganisation ofbudgets and accountability.6. Strategic Links6.1 We have valued the relationship that we have had with the Ministry of Justice and the National OffenderManagement Service over the last five years, and it has been crucial that we have been able to work alongsideindividuals with commitment to the agenda and understanding of the contribution that we make. In the lastyear, there have been significant changes within both of those areas, and these changes have brought significantchallenges to how the third sector can make a strategic input.6.2 Over the last twelve months the restructuring arrangements within the Ministry of Justice and NationalOffender Management Service appear to have weakened the focus on women at risk and women in the CriminalJustice System, and removed a layer of officials who really understood and bought into the agenda for changethat Baroness Corston set out in her report. While the number of people in both Departments has reduced, thenumber of people with a connection to the women’s agenda has increased, and for an organisation like Women’sBreakout this has brought the need to connect at a greater number of points. This of itself stretches capacity,but given that the responsibility for commissioning services in the future will be with the Probation Trusts, ofwhich there are 35, then the ability to connect effectively at a strategic level becomes a serious challenge.6.3 The strategic landscape continues to stretch across the localism agenda with the election of forty onePolice and Crime Commissioners later this year, and they will become very important in the futurecommissioning of local services as budgetary responsibility for Police and Community Safety Initiativestransfers to their control. But the budget for the imprisonment of women does not move local—and so womenwho are imprisoned become a “free good” to local statutory services.6.4 As the responsibility moves increasingly local, the focus on women becomes less sharp as women are asmall proportion of the offending population and they do not generally cause nuisance, fear or harm. Further,at a local level data has not to date been disaggregated by gender. It is clear that without a National CrossGovernment Strategy for women offenders and those at risk of offending the needs and circumstances ofwomen offenders will not be addressed appropriately and we are in real danger of sliding back to the conditionsthat led to serious health risks to women engaged in the criminal justice system and thirteen suicides in one year.7. A Strategy for Women Offenders?7.1 There is clearly no current strategy for women offenders, either written or implied. Without such astrategy, there is no coherence to the work and there is a confusing and fragmented landscape for differentproviders and contributors to connect to. Given the overlapping agendas that must come together under aholistic approach for women, co-commissioning of services and reorganisation of budgets becomes veryimportant, and yet in the absence of a strategy and appropriate leadership this will not become a reality.7.2 In March 2012 a commitment was made in the House of Lords to publish the Ministry of Justice’sstrategic priorities on women offenders. Early in this year, the Director of Women’s Breakout chaired a taskand finish group to produce a paper on women offenders. This paper was produced at the request of theMinister for Prisons and Probation, and presented to him in May 2012 (NB This paper is being submitted tothe Inquiry). Crispin Blunt was interested to explore some of the key elements of the paper in greater depthand there was useful discussion of important issues and the Minister ended by re-affirming the Government’scommitment to publish a document setting out the strategic priorities for women in the Criminal Justice System.7.3 In a subsequent discussion with officers in May 2012, members of the Third Sector Advisory Group onReducing Reoffending (RR3) were advised that this document would not be available until December 2012,and that their would not be a route for the third sector to contribute to the development of the document. At
Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 73the following meeting of the full RR3 meeting, disappointment was expressed in the officer response to thisand other recommendations in the document.8. Commissioning Intentions8.1 The NOMS Commissioning Intentions 2013/14 are set out in a discussion paper that gives a descriptionof what intelligent commissioning of services might look like. However, the paper fails to take a genderedview on some important issues and this results in:— Citing structured interventions for low risk offenders as an approach that does not work, andsuggesting that low risk offenders should generally receive only core services when the majorityof women offenders are low risk, but this generally goes alongside very chaotic lives, intowhich structure and order should be brought in order to reduce future reoffending and supportfamily relationships.— Citing interventions that mainly aim to build self esteem as an approach that does not work—for women who have been subjected to trauma and abuse, self esteem is a very importantstarting point for her in believing that she can take control of her life, and can make goodlife choices.— A failure to include in the factors that are most likely to reduce reoffending and enabledesistance some that are absolutely key for women (Intention 9):— Abuse and trauma.— Prostitution.— Wider health issues, including mental health and personality disorder.— Finance, benefit and debt including loan sharks and fraud.— Attitudes, thinking and behaviour—particularly in relation to self esteem, liking andvaluing ones self.Thank you for the opportunity to present these thoughts to you. Women’s Breakout seeks to support andhelp. We are committed to supporting our member organisations to take their place alongside statutory provisionso that together we can provide appropriate support for vulnerable women while delivering fair andcompassionate justice. We hope that this Inquiry will help us all to achieve more.September 2012Women’s BreakoutWomen’s Breakout is an infrastructure organisation with a membership of 47 organisations. We have aprimary objective to embed gender-specific interventions for women offenders and those at risk of offendinginto the Criminal Justice System—not as a short term project response, but as a mainstream service that isavailable to vulnerable women to support them in taking control of their lives and making positive progress;available to sentencers as a robust alternative to imprisoning women; available to support the rehabilitation ofwomen who have offended.Our member organisations bring a unique approach to supporting women with complex and multipleproblems. They aim to provide women with holistic and empathetic support, in a women only environment, inorder that they will be enabled to make better life choices. By putting women at the centre of support servicesand by understanding the complex and related nature of issues affecting their lives, projects are able toeffectively deal with the underlying reasons for offending behaviour. By working with many statutory andvoluntary organisations they can provide a broad range of support services to women, to help them address allof their needs through a “one stop shop” that is focussed on empowering women to make positive choices andbreak patterns of offending.The seeds of Women’s Breakout were sown in 2010 when strategic thinkers in the community projects, theMinistry of Justice and the Corston Coalition identified a need for a strategic voice for Women’s CommunityServices. We valued the support of the Ministry of Justice at that time in establishing our organisation, andsupporting a three year funding arrangement (2011–14) along with Government Equalities Office and theCorston Independent Funders Coalition.The Member organisations of Women’s Breakout are:Addaction LincolnshireAdvance/MinervaAnawimAshaBlackpool Women’s CentreBrighter Futures, Chepstow HouseBrighton Womens Centre Limited, (The Inspire project)Cambridge Resource CentreCambridge Women’s Resource Centre—the Dawn ProjectLincolnLondonBirminghamWorcesterBlackpoolStoke on TrentBrightonScarboroughCambridge
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