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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 105Equalities Office, and Department for Education, have ultimate responsibility for ensuring that women are ableto access the support services that they need, and ideally before entering the criminal justice system.14. Cooperation between departments on tackling social exclusion is particularly important in preventingwomen getting drawn into the criminal justice system; tackling some of the issues that contribute to women’soffending and intervening before a crime is committed. Following the publication of the Wedderburn Reportthere was recognition that a cross government approach was necessary and this was at the heart of the Labourgovernment’s strategy.15. Some of the progress that was made in developing links between government departments has been lost.The Inter-Ministerial Group on Reducing Re-offending and it’s sub-group on Women Offenders have both beendisbanded following the change of government, and the Criminal Justice Women’s Policy Team no longer hasstaff seconded to it from departments outside of the Ministry of Justice. At a time of reducing budgets andlarge scale department reorganisation, it would make more sense for departments to work collaborativelyand take a longer term view to achieving their shared objectives, rather than short-termist cost cutting andsilo working.16. Whilst there appears to be little appetite to re-establish cross-departmental governance, we believe thatit is vital in delivering any successful strategy to tackle women’s offending effectively. Without the necessarybuy in from other departments it will be difficult for the Ministry of Justice to make any inroads in reducingthe number of women in prison, and they will continue to be viewed as the responsibility of the Ministry ofJustice, rather than a collective one.17. One area which the government could take inspiration from is youth justice policy, with the Youth JusticeBoard working with allied agencies to achieve a substantive drop in first time entrants into the youth justicesystem, and in child custody.18. In regard to youth justice Crispin Blunt, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, outlined that seniorofficials have established a cross-departmental youth crime and justice board and that regular inter-ministerialmeetings ensure ministerial representation from the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Education, theHome Office and the Department of Health, to support cross-Government work. 4019. Theresa May, Home Secretary and Minister for Women, currently chairs the Inter-Ministerial Group onEquality and has overall responsibility for gender equality across government. The IMG could provide themost useful existing forum to discuss and prioritise action to tackle women’s offending, and facilitate crossgovernmentworking.3. The extent to which the gender equality duty has become a lever for mainstream service commissioners—outside of the criminal justice system—to provide services which tackle the underlying causes of femaleoffending20. The introduction of the Equality Act, and the gender equality duty before it, marks steps forward inensuring that public bodies take account of, and ensure that services meet, the distinct needs of women in thecriminal justice system. However, they have so far had a limited impact in encouraging commissioners toprovide gender specific services tackling the underlying causes of women’s offending. Commissioning ofgender specific services remains patchy and sporadic, often built on local commitment by a small number ofindividuals to addressing these issues.21. Community based women’s centres provide a wide ranging set of services that are available to allwomen, whether they have offended or not. They allow women to access services including counselling, drugand alcohol support, education, safe accommodation, advice on finance, benefit and debt as well as generaladvocacy, supervision and support. These centres often provide support to women who have been unable, orhave found it difficult, to access mainstream services by themselves. Some centres have been successful atattracting funding from a wide range of different agencies that can see the value they provide in getting womeninto the services that they need but often do not find or use in their local area.22. However, this is not the case for all women’s centres and many struggle to secure funding from localcommissioners. The Prison Reform Trust is concerned that, despite legislation, many women still do not getaccess to the services that they need at an early enough stage, and that the criminal justice system should notbe seen as a stopgap provider of services, rather than a punishment of last resort. Whilst legislation is a lever,we believe that financial incentives can prove an effective tool as well. Use of pooled local budgets and thejustice reinvestment model recommended by the Justice Committee, allow agencies to work together andeliminate the problem of prison being seen as a free good and encourage accountability. Work by the NewEconomics Foundation (nef) indicates scope for social return on investment and a value for money review ofwomen’s justice by the National Audit Office would indicate how savings could be made.4. The suitability of the women’s custodial estate and prison regimes23. Many women in prison are perpetrators of relatively petty crime, such as theft and handling stolen goods,and victims of serious crime such as domestic violence or sexual abuse. They have multiple and therefore more40HC Hansard, 25 October 2011, c236