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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 125registered with Women’s Breakout is located. The presence of one or more projects within a Probation Trustdoes not necessarily mean all women offenders within that Trust area have access to the projects. Many arepart funded by Local Authorities or subject to planning constraints, and cannot offer services to women livingoutside the Authority. For example, within Avon & Somerset Probation Trust is Eden House, a successfulproject run by partners including NOMS, offering a range of services to women offenders. However the projectis only available to women living within the Unitary Authority of Bristol, leaving all of Somerset and SouthGloucestershire with no provision. It is likely that many of the 15 Probation Trusts with some provision areactually similarly poorly supplied. Not all women offenders have difficulty with the unisex approach whichhas historically been delivered, but the majority have issues which leave them vulnerable. This can lead toreluctance to attend offices or work placements where male offenders are likely to be present, leading to lackof compliance and lack of engagement with community orders. We believe that the minimum services whichshould be available in all areas are:(a) Bail accommodation.(b) Separate premises or days for probation appointments.(c) Separate placements for community payback.(d) Separate rehabilitation programmes.(i) Bail accommodation is currently provided via the Stonham Bail Accommodation SupportServices (BASS) contract, however provision is patchy in some areas and the serviceappears not to be widely known about in courts. The number of women on remand is amatter for concern but the LASPO Act will address this to some degree by restricting thecourts’ ability to refuse bail where there is no realistic prospect of a custodial sentence.However, provision and use of appropriate bail accommodation may well reduce thenumber further. The Criminal Justice Joint Inspection 2011 report into the use ofalternatives to custody for women found that “awareness by courts and probation of theseservices tended to be low, so they were underused.” It still does not seem to be standardpractice in all courts for the CPS, probation or defence advocates to explore the possibilityof a BASS place before bail decisions are made.(ii) Where women’s community projects exist, and probation appointments are held withintheir premises, attendance by offenders is improved. Some women report reluctance toattend probation appointments at probation offices because the presence of male offendersis intimidating. Women’s centres have also reported that women are better able to lowertheir barriers in a “safe” environment and therefore engage better with probation servicesand are able to start addressing their offending behaviour. Stephanie Covington of theCenter for Gender and Justice, California has said that we need to presume the women weserve have a history of traumatic stress and we need to exercise “universal precautions”.What makes a difference is creating a safe environment, listening to her story, andempathy. Breaches of orders and reoffending are thereby both reduced. 23 projectsregistered with Women’s Breakout offer on-site access to probation, but some of these willonly be able to deal with offenders within a specific Local Authority area so will not beavailable within an entire Probation Trust. It is not known if any probation offices currentlyrun women only days or hold appointments at other locations apart from Women’s Centres.It is acknowledged that some areas will not have high enough numbers of women offendersto open separate offices, but urgent consideration should be given to allocating specificdays to women offenders or sending offenders to neighbouring areas where such provisionis available. Support for Women Around Northumberland (SWAN) is a project funded byMoJ which offers a mobile service allowing access by those in rural areas. This type of“virtual Women’s Centre” could be replicated without incurring the expense of separatepremises.(iii) Attendance on community payback placements is better if work is carried out in womenonlyplacements, as some women can find mixed placements working alongside maleoffenders intimidating. 12 projects under Women’s Breakout run unpaid work but it is notknown how many Probation Trusts offer arrangements outside these projects. Threeprojects run Attendance Orders. There is at least one Attendance Centre in Camden runspecifically for women and there would seem to be no reason for others not to offerwomen only days or sessions. Attendance can also be improved if the offender is supportedby one of the Women’s Projects, as reported by Anawim Birmingham project in a casestudy: “Probation said they have noticed a marked improvement with her engagement inCommunity Payback since she started to attend Anawim”.(iv) Not only do women attend and engage better with rehabilitation programmes in womenonlygroups, but the programmes tailored to women offenders also have better successrates. There are a number of projects offering different programmes and courses, but littleconsistency. Many areas do not offer any groups specifically for women. It is reported thatsuch sentencing options as do exist are under-used and we believe that to be in partbecause the provision is so patchy that many courts are probably unaware of the options.The Criminal Justice Joint Inspection 2011 report into the use of alternatives to custody