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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 101THE GOVERNMENT’S CURRENT WORKPLAN FOR FEMALE OFFENDERSAnnex AThe Government is fully committed to addressing women’s offending and reoffending. In its Response tothe Breaking the Cycle Green Paper, the Government gave a commitment that, in seeking to reduce reoffending,it would take into account the different profile of women’s offending. We will not successfully reduce women’soffending unless we address the factors which lead them to offend, including mental health, substance misuse,accommodation and employment needs. Where these factors are different to those for men, then a differentresponse is called for. This is not about preferential treatment but about achieving equal outcomes for femaleoffenders.Key elements of the current cross-Government workplan for female offenders include:Mental Health— Lord Bradley’s 2009 report on people with mental health problems or learning disabilities in thecriminal justice system proposed that all police custody suites and courts should have access toliaison and diversion services for offenders with mental health issues and other vulnerabilities. TheGovernment agrees and the Department of Health is investing in alternative approaches andcommitted just under £20 million in 2012–13 to support and test pathfinder service models. TheDepartment of Health has recently appointed the Offender Health Collaborative (a consortia led byNacro, a crime reduction charity) and the Offender Health Research Network (a ManchesterUniversity Collaborative) to support this work. A longer term evaluation, including longer termimpacts on health outcomes and reoffending rates will be commissioned later this year. Subject toapproval of a business case due to be considered in March 2013, the Department of Health will rollout National Health Service-funded liaison and diversion services for offenders in police custodyand at courts irrespective of age, gender or of needs and vulnerabilities. Liaison and diversionservices will ensure offenders are identified and assessed early and that they receive treatment in themost appropriate setting. Information from assessments will also inform decision making along thedifferent stages of the criminal justice pathway. Women are not a designated group being separatelyconsidered as part of the liaison and diversion business case development work however, leadoffender health commissioners, in collaboration with other relevant commissioners, will have theability to determine local levels and configurations of service. Therefore, local commissioners willbe able to develop specific services for female offenders as part of their local population needsassessments.— The National Offender Management Service and Department of Health have recently commencedimplementation of the female offender personality disorder strategy. Its aims are reductions inreoffending, improvements in psychological health, and workforce development. The strategy willdevelop a pathway of services in custody and the community for female offenders with personalitydisorder, commencing in East and West Midlands and East of England, and subsequently nationally.The strategy is based on the key principle that female offenders with personality disorder are ashared responsibility between the National Offender Management Service and the National HealthService, as well as others. It therefore requires joint operations, planning and delivery, but assumesthat treatment services will be located mainly in the criminal justice system. Interventions must bepsychologically informed, gender-specific and based on the best available evidence, focussing onrelationships and the social context in which people live. The strategy will increase availability ofand access to specialised personality disorder treatment services, as well as provide gender-specificpersonality disorder staff training.Substance Misuse— The National Offender Management Service and the Department of Health are piloting DrugRecovery Wings for drug and alcohol-dependent prisoners at three women’s prisons—HMPs NewHall, Askham Grange and Styal. The focus of these pilots is on promoting abstinence, becomingdrug-free and connecting offenders with community drug recovery services to help reducereoffending on release. The drug recovery wings will hold prisoners with less than twelve monthsleft to serve on their sentence, irrespective of sentence length. This will allow for more intensivetreatment interventions to be completed and more time to plan access to community health serviceswhen offenders are released on licence. In addition to drug and alcohol misuse treatment, work withoffenders will include addressing criminal attitudes, lifestyle and thinking, education, training andemployment support, and meeting housing needs. Interventions for women will also address otherneeds such as wider health issues and childcare and the influence of drug-misusing partners. Thepilots commenced April 2012 and will run for 18 months. York University will undertake anindependent evaluation. It has started an initial scoping and feasibility phase, expected to report insummer 2013, which will help inform the detailed evaluation approach.